Iran names 30-man squad for Volleyball Nations League
Iran head coach Behrouz Ataei announced a provisional 30-man squad for the Volleyball Nations League 2023.
All 16 teams will be allowed to name 14 players for each week at this year’s competition.
The inclusion of outside hitter Milad Ebadipour in Ataei’s list came as a surprise as the coach had said the Iranian captain would miss the best part of the three weeks due to injury and family reasons.
Injured middle blocker Ali-Asghar Mojarrad is also in the list, while opposite spiker Saber Kazemi is probably Iran’s biggest absentee in the preliminary round squad.
Veteran middle blocker Seyyed Mohammad Mousavi, who withdrew from the national team days before last August’s World Championship, has been handed a call-up by Ataei again as Amirhossein Toukhteh will miss the event for serving a one-year doping ban.
Iranian prodigy Pouria Hossein Khanzadeh, 18, who reached the Iranian Super League final with Haraz Amol in March – only to come short against Shahdab Yazad – has been rewarded with a place in the list and could fill in for Ebadipour.
Iran will open its campaign in Week 1 of the competition with a visit to Nagoya, Japan, where Ataei’s men will take on the host on June 6.
The first round of fixtures will also see Iran face Poland, China, and Slovenia respectively.
Iran will then fly to Rotterdam for Week 2 to square off against Germany on June 20 before a double header against reigning world champion Italy and USA, which was beaten by France in last year’s VNL final.
The Asian powerhouse will finish the second round with an encounter against the Netherlands at Rotterdam Ahoy on June 24.
Week 3 will begin for Iran with a game against defending champion France in Anaheim, California, on July 5.
Ataei’s team will play Bulgaria and Argentina and then cap off the preliminary round against Cuba on July 9.
The top seven teams of the table will join host Poland in the VNL Finals – starting with the quarterfinals in Gdansk’s Ergo Arena on July 19.
In his first experience at the competition, Ataei, despite a slow start, steered Iran to last year’s Finals, where his men suffered a last-eight defeat against Poland after a five-set thriller in Bologna, Italy.
The following is Iran’s full 30-man squad for the upcoming VNL:
Seyyed Mohammad Mousavi, Milad Ebadipour, Mehdi Jelveh, Amir-Reza Sarlak, Mohammad Fallah, Esmaeil Mosafer, Mohammadreza Hazratpour, Mohammadreza Mo’azen, Amin Esmaeilnejad, Amirhossein Esfandiar, Ali Ramezani, Mohammad-Javad Ma’navinejad, Ali-Asghar Mojarrad, Ali Hajipour, Meysam Salehi, Mohammad-Taher Vadi, Pouria Hossein Khanzadeh, Shahrouz Homayounfarmanesh, Arman Salehi, Armin Afshinfar, Bardia Sa’adat, Javad Karimi, Fazel Pajouman, Mohammad Valizadeh, Amir-Mohammad Golzadeh, Mobin Nasri, Morteza Sharifi, Mehrab Maleki Sorkhi, Ehsan Daneshdoust, Mas’oud Gholami.