In May 1968, Iran and Israel’s national football teams met in the final match of that year’s Asian Cup. While for the Israelis it was a confrontation in the sports arena, the Iranians saw the game differently: “The general public treats the event as a [national] confrontation, and in its mind are blended elements of a test of force between a Muslim country and Israel,” reported the Israeli delegation in Tehran to Jerusalem.1 The purpose of the present study is to examine how processes within the inner Iranian arena (the covert level—the competition on the pitch) were expressed in the final game of the Asian Cup (1968) between the teams of Iran and Israel, and how the confrontation on the turf (the overt level—the social arena) affected relations between the two countries and the local population’s attitude toward the Jewish minority in Iran.

中文翻译：

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进退两难：1968 年亚洲杯决赛是伊朗与以色列关系的试金石

1968年5月，伊朗和以色列国家足球队在当年的亚洲杯决赛中相遇。对于以色列人来说，这是一场体育竞技场上的对抗，而伊朗人则以不同的方式看待这场比赛：“公众将这一事件视为[国家]对抗，在他们的脑海中混合了穆斯林国家之间力量测试的元素和以色列，”驻德黑兰的以色列代表团向耶路撒冷报告。1 本研究的目的是研究伊朗内部竞技场（隐蔽层面——球场上的竞争）的过程如何在亚洲杯的最后一场比赛中表现出来。伊朗和以色列队之间的杯赛（1968 年），以及草坪上的对抗（公开层面——社交场所）如何影响两国之间的关系以及当地居民对伊朗犹太人少数民族的态度。