WL2017/Olympic Champion Brazil Edge Out Iran 3-1

Pesaro, Italy, June 3, 2017 – Evandro Guerra was the biggest contributor to Brazil’s first win in the 2017 FIVB Volleyball World League. The South American giants overpowered Iran for a 3-1 (21-25, 25-19, 25-22, 25-22) victory in a Group 1 game held in Italy.

Evandro Guerra hammered out as many as 27 points to become the best scorer of the match. Ricardo Lucarelli supported him with another 19. On the Iranian side, Amir Ghafour was the most prolific player, also with 19 points.

These two teams have met eight times in the World League starting in 2014. Brazil now leads the head-to-head series by five wins to three.

Iran were almost perfect at the start of the first set. Seven monster blocks by Ghafour limited Brazil’s success rate in offence down to 43% and led Iran to a 25-21 set close.

In the second set Brazil shifted gears and thanks to Evandro’s perfect spikes the South Americans managed to tie the match with a 25-19 win of the second set. In the third set Evandro, with an 89% success rate in attack, transformed almost every ball he touched into an incredible point. He made the last attack of the third set lifting Brazil to a 25-22 win.

In the final set Lucarelli pushed Brazil forward, but Iran did not want to give up. It was a point-for-point battle, but at the end Brazil finished it off with an amazing spike by Lucarelli to win the set by 25-22 and the match by 3-1.