The Iran men’s national volleyball team has slumped to its first defeat at the fourth week of the 2018 Fédération Internationale de Volleyball (FIVB) Volleyball Men's Nations League, going down to the Serbian side.
On Saturday evening, suffered a narrow defeat and ceded its second Pool 15 fixture at the 11,000-seat Sears Centre in Hoffman Estates, Illinois, the United States, 2-3 (25-21, 22-25, 25-27, 25-20 and 11-15) to the Southeast Europeans.
The loss came a day after Iranian volleyball players had thumped world champion Poland 3-0 (26-24, 26-24 and 25-22) in their opening match.
The Iran men’s national volleyball team is scheduled to play against the United States in its third challenge on Sunday.
The 2018 FIVB Volleyball Men's Nations League kicked off on May 25, and will run through July 8 in 22 host cities.
A total of 16 teams compete in a round-robin format with every core team hosting a pool at least once.
The teams are divided into four pools of four teams at each week and compete five weeks long, with a total of 120 matches.
The top five teams after the preliminary round join the host of the final round to compete in the last stage.
The relegation takes in consideration only the 4 challenger teams.
The last-ranked challenger team plays the promotion play-off against the Challenger Cup winners. The winners of the play-off will qualify for the next edition as a challenger team.