The league title was won with games to spare by a coach in his first season, leaving fans in the north-west of the country to wait for the official presentation of the trophy. Jamie Carragher said on Sunday that “Liverpool as a city feels like it is ‘us against the world” but that is nothing when compared to those who follow Tractor SC, a club that brings hope, unity and a voice to millions of Azerbaijani Turks, the largest minority in Iran. Now they have a first Iranian championship to celebrate.
That journey to the very top took 55 years. It started when the state-owned tractor company set up a team for its workers and residents in Tabriz, the biggest city in the Iran’s East Azerbaijan province as a whole, not far from the border with Turkey, Armenia and Azerbaijan. The relationship with the club and Tehran has been mixed ever since, especially as Tractor, after not doing much for quite a while, started to become a force on the pitch as well as a focal point off it.
