Iran volleyball team overcomes Argentina 3-2 in FIVB World League

Iranian men’s national volleyball team has bagged a hard-fought victory in its last game of the third week of 2016 Fédération Internationale de Volleyball (FIVB) World League, prevailing over the Argentine side.

On Sunday evening, the Iranian squad triumphed over Argentina 3-2 (25-23, 22-25, 21-25, 25-22 and 16-14) in an epic Pool I1 - Group 1 encounter staged at Azadi Sports Complex in western Tehran.

Even though both teams had failed to secure a spot among the last six for the final round in the southern polish city of Kraków due to be held later this month, Iranian and Argentine volleyball players exhibited a stunning performance.

The Persians got off to a fine start, and took an early lead 8-6 over the South Americans in the 22th minute, when the 59-year-old Argentine head coach Raúl Lucio Lozano called a time-out. They took advantage of the opposite side’s error and an emphatic spike by Mojtaba Mirzajanpour finished the set at 25-23 for Iran.

The hosts did not seem to be capitulating as they came back to the game, and could rack up several points in the first few minutes of the match to galvanize the fans.

The Iranian volleyball players, however, could not maintain the lead and Argentina’s Cristian Poglajen leveled the score at seven.

The Iranians then put right their mistakes to surge ahead, and recorded a 16-15 lead at the second technical timeout. Despite admirable reception and quick attacks by Iran, Argentine volleyball players finally closed the set at 25-22.

The Argentines maintained the upper hand in the third set, and won it 25-21.

Iran bounced back as the match went into the fourth set, and an ace by Seyed Mohammad Mousavi made it 13-11 in the 133rd minute. Iranian volleyball players eventually took the set 25-22. 

The Persian continued to offer a convincing performance in the fifth set, and clinched the match 16-14. 

“Before coming to Iran I had heard about Iranian fans and how they cheer their national players, but now I experienced it for 3 days and I am so happy. About the game today, I have to say it was a very difficult game for both teams with a lot of pressure. The game was at a high level of volleyball, but both teams were under pressure as they knew they are going to rival each other in the opening match of the Olympic Games. So they tried to get good results,” Lozano said after the match.

“I think both teams played at the same level. I do not want to talk about the game as everybody knows how important it was for both Argentina and Iran. It was the last match before the Olympic Games and was also important for the ranking.

“I want to talk about the inspiration that the people of Iran gave us during the [FIVB] World League. They really helped us in a day when we really needed them. Even though we did not get good results in the World League this year, they supported us and I really appreciate it. We had many injured players and had difficult situations with long travels. I believe we had a good performance both in the Olympic Qualification Games in Tokyo and in the World League,” Iran’s captain Saeed Marouf said.

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