WATCH: U.S. Soccer Captain Issues Perfect Response to Troll Iranian Reporter After Question About ‘Black Discrimination’ in America

The captain of the U.S. Men’s National Soccer Team (USMNT) had a perfectly classy response to a troll Iranian reporter questioning him about American racism.

At a press conference ahead of Tuesday’s World Cup matchup between the United States and Iran, a reporter representing the latter country attacked USMNT captain Tyler Adams, a black man, for his mispronunciation of Iran while questioning him about racism back home in the United States.

“You say you support the Iranian people, but you are pronouncing our country’s name wrong,” the reporter said before giving the correct pronunciation of Iran. “Second of all, are you okay to be representing a country that has so much discrimination against black people in its own borders? We saw the Black Lives Matter movement over the past few years.”

Adams first humbly apologized for his mispronunciation of Iran before giving a classy, educated answer to the troll question.

“There’s discrimination wherever you go,” Adams said. “One thing that I’ve learned especially from living abroad in the past years, having to fit in different cultures is that in the U.S. we’re continuing to make progress every single day. I grew up in a white family with an African American heritage and background as well, so I had a little bit of different cultures and I was very easily able to assimilate into different cultures.”

“Education is super important. It’s a process and as long as you see progress, that’s the most important thing,” he added.

Tyler Adams mispronounced Iran and was called out by an Iranian journalist – who followed up with a question on discrimination in the United States.

His response: An all time classy answer- Captain & Leader. #USMNT 👏 pic.twitter.com/pELQmBttPl

— Stu Holden (@stuholden) November 28, 2022

The questioning from the Iranian journalist came after the country attempted to have the United States kicked out of the World Cup over a social media post that shared Iran’s flag minus the emblem of the Islamic Republic as a show of solidarity with “the women in Iran fighting for basic human rights.” The U.S. Soccer Federation deleted the image of the flag after the initial uproar. Iran subsequently filed a complaint with FIFA’s Ethics Committee demanding that the U.S. receive a 10-game ban for “offending the dignity” of the nation.

By posting a distorted image of the flag of the Islamic Republic of #Iran on its official account, the #US football team breached the @FIFAcom charter, for which a 10-game suspension is the appropriate penalty.
Team #USA should be kicked out of the #WorldCup2022 pic.twitter.com/c8I4i4z3Tv

— Tasnim News Agency (@Tasnimnews_EN) November 27, 2022

USMNT Greg Berhalter apologized on behalf of the team for the social media post, saying they had nothing to do with it.

“Sometimes things are out of our control,” Berhalter said. “We’re not focused on those outside things and all we can do is apologize on behalf of the players and the staff, but it’s not something that we were a part of.”

“We had no idea what US Soccer put out. The staff, the players, we had no idea. For us our focus is on this match and I don’t want to sound aloof, or we’re not caring by saying that,” he added. “Of course, our thoughts are with the Iranian people, the whole country, and everyone.”