Iran volleyball team rolls into FIVB U19 World Championship

The Iran men's national under-19 volleyball team has earned an easy spot in the semi-final round of the 2017 Fédération Internationale de Volleyball (FIVB) Volleyball Boys' U19 World Championship in Bahrain, after it swept Brazil off the court.

On Friday, the Iranian team thrashed the Brazilian side in straight sets (25-21, 25-20 and 25-15) at Isa City Sports Hall, and earned a semi-final seat in the competition.

Pouriya Yali was the top scorer for Iran with 18 points, while Amirhossein Esfandiar added 14 more.

Victor Cardoso and Welinton Oppenkoski were Brazil’s top performers scoring 13 points each.

Iran’s coach, Reza Vakili Farjad, said after the match, “We are very happy to have this match against Brazil. We had prepared mentally well before coming into this game. We like playing against strong teams because we can have the chance to improve our level. During the rest day, we trained hard, both in fitness and ball training. I think this has really paid off with our performance today. 

“Brazil is a very strong team with a lot of talent for future. We needed to use our tactics in this match, and all the players performed well with this game plan in mind.” 

“I want to play long enough and good enough to make it to the seniors’ team. Sometimes, I cannot wait to be in that level. But I have to work harder and train more,” Iran’s captain, Amirhossein Esfandiar, commented.

Brazilian coach, Leonardo Carvalho, commented, “It was very difficult to play against Iran particularly that our reception was not as good as we want it to be. We played at the start in a very good level, with good reception, strong attacks, strong serves. But in the end of the first set, we could not post well on reception on the float serves. They had very strong serves with the right spin or float. They deserved to win as they really played better than we did. I am very impressed with Iran’s players. They are much stronger and they can play at such a high level. Congratulations to Iran.” 

Brazil’s captain, Joao Franck, said, “In this level of competition, we can make a lot of errors. But what we can do is learn from these mistakes and avoid doing them in the future.”

The Iran men's national under-19 volleyball team will play South Korea in a semi-final showdown on Saturday.

The 2017 FIVB Volleyball Boys' U19 World Championship started in Bahrain on August 18, and will wrap up on August 27.

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