What does “Team Melli” mean?

One of the readers (Chuck) asked me to translate “Team Melli” to English. I happened to answer a similar question asked by a Scottish friend of mine a few weeks ago, so I thought I make the answer into a weblog entry.

“Team Melli” is actually pronounced “Team-eh Melli” by us Persian speaking folks. Word by word it means “The National Team”. Funny, isn’t it?

Well, the key here is the “The”. Let me explain.

Football is by far the most popular team sport in Iran. The only other sport, and not just team sport, which can come close is Olympic Wrestling, or Free Wrestling, Iran’s national sport.

Since the British and other Europeans introduced football to Iranians in the late nineteenth century, there has been no looking back. We just love this game beyond any other. So much that it has almost become the one and only game that matters; it is simply “The Game.”

So for generations we have learned to refer to the national football team as “The National Team” or “Team-eh Melli.”

Every other sport’s national team has to be defined by name. For example, the national basketball team is called exactly that, “The National Basketball Team” or “Team-eh Melli-eh Basketball”.

When Iranians refer to the “national team”, you may automatically assume they are talking about the football team.

The word “Melli” also means “the people’s” or “belonging to the people”, making “Team-eh Melli” to also mean “The People’s Team”. As Iranians’ passion for the boys in the national uniform shows the “People’s Team” it is.

You can read a little about the history of Team Melli in this article.