ISTANBUL — Zeinab Sahafi didn’t want to be an activist.

All she ever wanted to be, she said, was a regular fan, another of the millions of soccer obsessives around the world who every week step into stadiums to scream and shout in support of their teams for 90 minutes, and then return and do it all over again at the next game.

Only Sahafi, 23, is Iranian, and a woman, and that has changed everything. To pursue her passion over the last decade she has dressed up first as a boy and later as a bearded man to attend games. She has been arrested and handcuffed and detained in jail, all because since 1981 Iran has barred women from attending soccer matches.

So when the ban was finally lifted — though only partially — on Thursday for a World Cup qualifier between Iran and Cambodia, it would have been natural for Sahafi to be among the 4,000 women who eagerly bought tickets and entered the Azadi stadium, the cavernous arena in western Tehran where the national team plays its home games.