Volleyball Nations League:
Iran edged out by Slovenia, remains winless in Week 1
Iran fell to a 3-2 (17-25, 25-23, 25-18, 18-25, 15-12) loss to Slovenia at the Men’s Volleyball Nations League in in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on Friday night.
This was a third successive defeat for the Asian powerhouse in the first week of action at the annual event, though Iran again showed signs of improvement under new Italian head coach Roberto Piazza against last year’s VNL semifinalist.
Iran was well-beaten in straight sets (25-19, 25-16, 25-18) by Brazil in their opening game on Tuesday, and then relinquished a two-set lead to suffer a 3-2 (19-25, 21-25, 25-21, 25-23, 17-15) setback against the United States in a five-set thriller at the Maracanãzinho arena the following night.
Slovenian opposite-spiker Nik Mujanović scored a game-high 30 points, with outside-hitter Rok Možič and middle-blocker Jan Kozamernik also finishing in double figures with 17 and 10 points, respectively.
Prolific opposite-spiker Bardia Sa’adat topped the scoring for Iran, chipping in 24 points, followed by outside-hitters Pouria Hosseinkhanzadeh (11 points) and Amirhossein Esfandiar (10 points).
“The situation in Iran clearly impacted our performance today as all the players and the coaching staff are extremely worried about their families,” Sa’adat said after the match, referring to Israel’s airstrike on Iranian soil, where left dozens killed or injured on Friday.
Iranian players offered a military salute during their national anthem prior to the game – a symbolic gesture in response to the criminal military aggression.
Piazza, meanwhile, was pleased with the way his players “gave it everything they had on the court”, though the Italian believes they could have done better in a couple of crucial incidents.
“The players did OK today but there were moments we should have handled differently. We should have closed out the second set under better circumstances, but we lost that, and then couldn’t find the same rhythm we had in the first set in the third. Then we bounced back in the fourth,” the former Netherlands head coach.
“There were a couple of decisive rallies in the fifth set, and both went Slovenia’s way. I clearly remember the first one early in the set, and the second came after my timeout when we trailed by 12-10, which we should have dealt with differently.”
Iran will finish Week 1 with a game against Ukraine today, before heading to Belgrade for the second week.
“We have one day to rest and recover our energy. A couple of key players like Amin [Esmaeilnejad] and Mohammad [Valizadeh] sat out today’s game, but we’ll have a full squad available against Ukraine.
“Ukraine is a strong team – they’re also very experienced because they’ve played together for three straight seasons. They’ve only lost one player, [Oleh] Podnisky, while the rest of players has been together for a long time and know each other well. We need to focus on ourselves as we’re in for another tough match.”
Ukraine defeated USA 3-0 (25-22, 25-20, 25-23) on the opening day of the competition and came out victorious against Cuba in five sets (25-22, 20-25, 25–20, 17-25, 15-12).