Italy Dash Iran’s Hope by Straight-Set victory

Tehran, Iran, July 2, 2016 – Italy crediting by Vettori and Juantorena the win against Italy 3-0 (25-20, 25-20, 25-21).

This is the eighth time Iran and Italy will clash in the World League and for the first time since the 2014 third place decider (3-0 win Italy). Italy have won four of the previous seven World League meetings while Iran took three wins.
The winners of opening night stepped into the court with mentality of dominance particularly the Iranian squad who warmly receive the inspiring support of home crowd. Italy took an early lead 8-4 and Belgini called a time out as the margin minimized in 13-11 to steer the second technical time out 16-12. Italy take the advantage of the errors to close the set 25-20.
Iran came back to the match in the opening moments of second set to convince the fans but could not hold on to it for very long as Italy’s Osmany Juantorena made it even in 8-8. The scored were edged up to 13 that finally Iran trailed 13-16 for the second technical time-out. Lozano called his players out to remind them of the critical closing points. Three substitutions were made to reduce the margin 20-19 as Italy’s Vettori maintained the gap. All Iran could finally do was to repeat the same result 20-25.
Lozano who felt concerned with his consecutive mistakes and the brilliant performance of Italy in the third set tried to have his bench players in as Mobasheri and Zarini were his choices in. The scores were reached 11-13 for Iran after trailing 8-4 in the first technical time out. Belgini pushed the bell to call the players out to stop the flow of the match. Iran severally tried to make a comeback as Zarini equalized 14-14. The home fans were hoping to have Zaytsev’s ball out as he stood on serve. Yes, it was out but in Return the serve erro mof Mousavi closed the set 25-21.
Despite losing on the volleyball court, there was still plenty to celebrate on the Iranian side as Shahram Mahmoudi and Mousavi each scored 13 and 8 points each.