Esfandiar’s club form a boost for international duty
Amirhossein Esfandiar’s recent form in the Chinese Volleyball League offers an integral role for the Iranian when the national team takes part in two major international tournaments in 2025.
The Iranian outside-hitter has chipped in 185 points for Tianjin Food Group this season, standing 15th in the league’s top scorers’ chart.
The pinnacle of Esfandiar’s contribution, however, has come from the service line.
The 25-year-old, whose MVP performance inspired Iran to the world under-21 title in 2019, has registered a league-high 35 aces in the ongoing season – including five in Tianjin’s victory last time out.
Esfandiar scored 19 points to help the Chinese club beat Beijing BAIC Motor 3-1 in Group D of the Chinese league on Sunday.
Esfandiar’s impressive stats is a major boost for Iran’s new head coach Roberto Piazza.
The Italian coach will be looking to build on a combination between overseas players – including Esfandiar, skipper Milad Ebadipour, as well as prolific duo Amin Esmaeilnejad and Pouria Hosseinkhanzadeh – to end the country’s below-par international run over the past couple of years.
Having finished in the bottom three in the preliminary 16-team table of the past two editions, Iran will get its VNL campaign underway against Brazil in Rio de Janeiro on June 11.
A second outing for Iran in Pool 2 will come against another volleyball powerhouse in USA, followed by encounters with Slovenia and Ukraine.
Iran will head to Belgrade, Serbia, for Week 2 of the competition, starting with an encounter against the host on June 25.
Piazza’s side will then play Argentina and Germany before the Italian reunites with his former team, the Netherlands, in the Serbian capital on June 29.
The third and the final week of the preliminary phase in Gdańsk, Poland, will see Iran square off against European powerhouses Poland (July 16) and France (July 19), who met in the Olympic final in August, either side of an all-Asian battle against China.
Iran will hope to be in contention for a place in the VNL Finals when going head-to-head with Bulgaria in their final Week 3 game on July 20.
The top eight teams of the preliminary-round table will progress to the VNL Finals – starting with the quarterfinals on July 30 – with the host city yet to be announced by the FIVB, the international governing body of the sport.
A second major event for Piazza and his team will be September’s World Championship in the Philippines, where Iran is drawn in Pool A – also featuring the host, Egypt, and Tunisia.