GA_googleAddSlot("ca-pub-1197233282945943", "Star_Sports_Skyscraper");

Sports

Tuesday May 9, 2006

Iran prepare for ‘Mexican Voodoo’

TEHRAN: Iran will prepare themselves for the “Mexican Voodoo” during the World Cup in Germany, an official of the Iranian Football Federation (FFI) told the news agency ISNA on Sunday.

“The Mexicans are masters of psychological wars and might use magicians (for voodooing),” said Ali Pour, the cultural deputy of the Iranian Football Federation.

“This issue (Voodoo) has to some extent affected our players and some of them link it to the injuries of (Ali) Karimi (Bayern Munich) and (Vahid) Hashemian and (Mehdi) Mahdavikia in the Bundesliga,” said Ali.

Many Iranians are superstitious and for example believe in the “evil eye” or “salty eye”, meaning that if someone deeply wished something bad for somebody, then the bad thing would eventually happen.

Therefore many keep a small and usually blue stone with an eye on it - some even hang it inside their cars - to confront ill-wishers.

“We have already planned appropriate measures against such tricks and generally believe that real believers cannot be affected by such magic and as the Iranian team have a deep religious belief, it will resists like an unconquerable castle,” he said. – dpa

  • E-mail this story
  • Print this story

Sports Poll