Leeds United's Tyler Adams chided by Iranian journalist and responds in remarkable USMNT press call

Adams, captain of the American team who are set to face Iran in a must-win Group B clash tomorrow in Qatar, was scolded by the journalist for his pronunciation of Iran and challenged on representing a country that has issues with racial discrimination.

The Whites man was asked: "First of all, you say you support the Iranian people, but you're pronouncing our country's name wrong. Please once and for all, let's get this clear. Second of all, are you okay to be representing a country that has so much discrimination against black people in his own borders. And we saw the Black Lives Matter movement over the past few years. Are you okay to be representing the US meanwhile, there's so much discrimination happening against black people in America.”

In response, Adams issued an apology to the journalist, but insisted that his nation has made progress when it comes to discrimination and drew upon his own life experience to expound the importance of education.

“My apologies on the mispronunciation of your country,” he began.

"That being said there's discrimination everywhere you go. One thing that I've learned, especially from living abroad in the past years and having to fit in different cultures and kind of assimilate into different cultures is that in the US, we're continuing to make progress every single day.

"Growing up for me, I grew up in a white family with an obviously an African American Heritage and background as well. So I had a little bit of different cultures and I was very, very easily able to assimilate in different different cultures. Not everyone has that, that ease and the ability to do that and obviously it takes longer to understand and through education, I think it's super important – like you just educated me now on the pronunciation of your country. It's a process I think, is as long as you see progress. That's the most important thing.”

Adams explained his background and the racial make-up of his family in a Players Tribune piece in 2018.

During the same press conference today, USMNT boss Gregg Berhalter was asked about the negative effects of inflation in the US, strict visa rules in place against Iranian citizens and America’s naval presence in the Persian Gulf.

The head coach made an attempt to steer the topic of conversation back to football, without a huge measure of success, saying: “'For us it's a soccer game against a good team - it's not much more than that.”

Tensions were already high ahead of the press conference after the US Soccer federation temporarily displayed Iran's flag on social media without the emblem of the Islamic Republic, in a move aimed at showing solidarity with the on-going protests in Iran.