TIJUANA: Iran’s national football team was greeted Sunday in Mexico by a small group of supporters eager to give them a warm start to the World Cup, despite visa problems facing some staffers. “I’m very excited to see them,” said Sadegh Galavi as he watched the players’ bus leave the airport in Tijuana, cheered on by about a dozen fans. Galavi, a mechanic and resident of this city on the US border, did not hesitate to get up at dawn to welcome the team when it landed at 5:00 am.

Problems with processing visas had earlier led Iran to move its training base from Tucson, Arizona, to Tijuana, on Mexico’s border with California.

Iran's World Cup squad left Turkey for Mexico on Saturday, taking off under the shadow of a bitter diplomatic row between Tehran and Washington after the US refused to issue visas…

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