Timothy Richardson, the Acting Director of the Iran Regional Presence Office, Department of State said that in the wake of emotions running high after one week of adversarial debates amongst Iran's four presidential candidates, the result of the country's national soccer team's World Cup qualifying match against the UAE may add to the dissatisfaction of the voters with Ahmadinejad with only 2.5 days to the upcoming elections.

President Ahmadinejad has worked a lot to link himself to the beloved national football team of Iran, called `Team Melli'.

However, this strategy of his to win the popularity and votes of the people backfired in March when he got accused of "jinxing" the team, which had unluckily suffered a last-minute loss to the Saudi Arabian team right after Ahmadinejad had stepped into the stadium. Moreover, added to this woe was the highly unexpected defeat of their national wrestling team when Ahmadinejad had attended it earlier this year.

Both these events triggered off a firestorm of SMS messages and internet jokes all of which regarded the President being personally at blame for both the teams' defeats. If further defeats of the national teams continue, Ahmadinejad's standings in the presidential elections can further weaken.