Instead of pre-match Islamic pop singers who sing about love and God, two famous religious chanters, Majid Bani-Fatemi and Sadegh Marashi, performed before the crowds. They told the story of the death of Abolfazl, Hussein’s loyal friend who was killed trying to bring water for the children of the small band that accompanied the prophet’s grandson on his final stand against his enemies.

Commemorating the violent death of Hussein in 680, an event that solidified the split between the Shiite and Sunni branches of Islam, is one of the most important religious rites in Iran. Believers organize processions where some whip themselves with chains to the beat of drums. Men and women gather during long nights of religious singing about Hussein’s death, with everybody weeping.

Soccer, a passion of modern-day Iran, is definitely not part of the tradition.

Angered clerics exhorted the government to cancel the match, warning that instead of lamenting the death of Hussein, people might cheer for their earthly national team.

Ayatollah Mohammad Yazdi, a well-known hard-line cleric, fulminated in a speech that traditional values needed to be protected. “It would be better to cancel the match than to allow such disrespect to happen,” he said, according to the semiofficial Islamic Students’ News Agency.

But cancellation would have almost certainly cost Iran its qualification for the 2018 World Cup in Russia, as the team would have been penalized by FIFA, the international governing body for soccer, for not showing up.