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DUBAI (Reuters) - The mood in Dubai's Iranian Club was buoyant as fans gathered around the national football team, asking players to pose for pictures under the watchful gaze of Iran's revolutionary leaders whose pictures adorned the wall.

After a friendly match against Jordan, team members were about to board a bus to take them to the airport for the flight back to Tehran and talking about their prospects for the 2014 World Cup.

"There's so much more confidence," said a bystander in an Iranian football shirt who busily snapped photos with his mobile phone. "I really think we can qualify."

As the bus pulled away, the conversation turned to the state of Iranian politics and the forthcoming parliamentary elections and the atmosphere turned distinctly gloomy.

"These elections are a game to control the people," said Sabor, a 17-year-old Iranian physics student who had lived in the United Arab Emirates since he was child. "There is no point in people voting because there is no choice."

Friday's election will be Iran's first since a presidential vote in 2009, when a disputed victory for President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad triggered eight months of violent protests.

With leading reformist groups staying away from the vote, the contest is between the hardline backers of the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who hope to capitalise on widespread economic discontent to defeat allies of Ahmadinejad.

At home and abroad many Iranians have experienced the difficulties of life under an unbending Islamic government and have long since given up hope that one day political change will come. The crowd outside the Iranian Club was no exception.

"Tell me who I should vote for," pleaded Jalal, a 54-year-old carpet dealer from north-west Iran on a business trip to Dubai. "There is no choice, no freedom. These candidates are self-serving and are in it for themselves."

Many were reluctant to discuss the situation in Iran - unsurprising given that the club is owned and run by the Iranian government as a cultural institution for the estimated 400,000 Iranian nationals living in the United Arab Emirates.

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Iranian expats shrug their shoulders as elections loom