In Jafar Panahi's "Offside," the girls are trying to go to the World Cup. More precisely, they are trying to enter Tehran's Azadi Stadium to watch Iran's World Cup qualifying match against Bahrain.
The 2006 Iranian film follows young women who disguise themselves as boys because women were prohibited from attending men's football matches in Iranian stadiums. Several are caught and confined in a holding area near the stadium, where they can hear the crowd and follow the match without being allowed to watch it directly. Their arrest drives the film's central conflict between official rules and the shared excitement of sport.
The match was based on a real June 2005 World Cup qualifier. Iran defeated Bahrain 1–0 and qualified for the 2006 FIFA World Cup in Germany. Panahi filmed parts of the movie around the real event, giving the story an unusual documentary immediacy. The title "Offside" refers both to football and to the way the girls are treated as outsiders. Panahi was inspired in part by his daughter, who had encountered restrictions on women entering football stadiums.