Keane: No Iran battle (StuForster/Allsport)

Apparently not, it seems. This store stands, I kid you not, on the corner of Bobby Sands Street, an upmarket tree-lined lane in the city's heart, tucked off a main drag.

Culture shocks come in many guises but when you watch Iranians shopping for anything from jetskis to state-of-the-art hi-fi equipment in a road which honours an IRA martyr, you can't help laughing about whether you've seen it all now.

Visiting this street, which houses the visa section of the British Embassy - somebody here obviously had a warped sense of humour - also jolts you into realising that the two countries whose footballing men will be facing off tomorrow for a place in next summer's World Cup finals share some sort of affinity.

'Yes, I remember Bobby Sands. A brave man, a good man,' an elderly Iranian in our hotel explains, recalling how the hunger striker's death in prison once struck a powerful chord with a country which saw the Irish Republican movement's battle with the Thatcher Government as a reflection of its own struggle against a common foe.

Whether it is down to history or merely to the winning ways with which Irishmen abroad appear to be armed these days, Iran seems to have fallen for its visitors even while desperate to send them home empty handed.

It has been easy these past few days to feel that the festivals in Dublin and Tehran have been about more than a couple of games of football. It has felt like a significant cultural exchange, a time for opening of eyes.

Tehran, a great sprawling metropolis flanked by snow-capped mountains and teeming with the most chaotic traffic this side of Grand Prix day at Silverstone - including zillions of what look suspiciously like old Hillman Hunters - isn't the loveliest capital on the planet but the openness and warmth of its reception have been hard to beat.

Irish fans have found surprises and contradictions everywhere.

You'll see women covered up in traditional Islamic dress yet caked with make-up and carrying briefcases.

You can visit an exhibition celebrating the 22nd anniversary of the storming of the US Embassy here, where banners pronounce 'Death to America', yet find the taxi driver who takes you there preaching about how he has no illwill towards the United States.

Impressive shopping streets reek of capitalism.

You can't help sensing that here is a country which, under the more liberating hand of its president Mohammed Khatami and with 60 per cent of its population aged below 30 - the children of the Revolution - is coming to terms with huge change, from fundamentalism to increased tolerance, from traditional values to modernisation.

And the fortunes of the Iranian national football team, some will tell you, reflect that transformation. Ever since millions took to the streets to celebrate the play-off victory over Australia which took them to the last World Cup, similar explosions of joy have routinely followed the team's every triumph.

Post-match revelry has reportedly included women ripping off and waving headscarves while teenage boys paint their faces red, white and green and dance in the road. From kids who have never even been to a disco, this has been interpreted by some as being their own form of social protest.

The ayatollahs, they say, are not amused. Yet many I have talked to reckon it has nothing to do with politics or protest.

'It's simple,' says Iranian football journalist Hesam Alavi. 'People in Iran love their football and, like anywhere else in the world, they just want to celebrate. People don't need to drink here when they can get high on football.

'I've been to the Azadi Stadium many times and have never seen any other crowd cheer this way. You have to shut your ears. If you can.'

That is what Ireland's team have been trying to do all week and must again tomorrow. It is sad that they haven't taken the opportunity to see this remarkable city but, understandably on such a short visit, they can't afford any distraction and have only left their hotel for training.

At least Mick McCarthy has taken pressure off them by playing a blinder as front man all week.

Mind you, by yesterday, as one Iranian journalist interrogated him about whether he was an Irishman or an Englishman and another asked whether the Republic of Ireland should be renamed the Republic of Roy Keane - you can't escape his giant shadow anywhere here - the weariness of his replies, tinged by tetchiness, told of a down-to-earth bloke whose had enough of all the silly questions and, at 2-0 up, cannot wait to get on with the second half.

Questions, questions. Would the giant crowd faze them? 'No.' How would they cope without Keane? 'Well.' What about the altitude factor of playing in thin air at 4,000 feet? 'Won't be a problem.' Would they be defensive? 'No.' Will it be entertaining? 'I hope not.'

Listen, said McCarthy, he didn't have a victory speech or a losers' speech planned.