AVC Men’s U23 Championship/Iran Remained Unbeaten with 3-1 Victory Over Malaysia

Ardabil, Iran, May 4, 2017 – Iranian U23 team remained unbeaten as they managed to beat  Malaysia 3-1 (23-25, 25-20, 25-19, 25-21) at the SMM 2^nd Asian Men’s U23 Volleyball championship at Rezazadeh 6000-seat Stadium on Thursday.

Iran started the match in an aggressive way as they always had a high-volume cheering whenever they scored a point. Malaysia adapted themselves to the match and they soon left Iran behind in the first set 25-23. Iran bounced back as they bear the support of 8000 spectators on site and gained more confidence to win the second set 25-20 by the perfect blocks of captain Taghizadeh . Facing the big pressure opposed by the fans, Malaysia came into some disorder. They called a timeout at 9-5 behind, but that could not stop Iran to disappoint the fans as they triumph 25-19.

Cheered by over 8000 fans, Iran that was trailing in both technical time-outs gained focus to keep their momentum 17-16 ahead and smoothly won it in 25-21 leading by attacks of Amin Esmaeilnejad to delight their supporters with a 3-1 victory.

Cichello, the head coach of Iran considered the rest-day before the match as a disadvantage as he said after the match: “we lost the first set and this can show the disadvantage of having rest. The opposite of Malaysia did a really great job. We made almost 15 service errors that is too much and must work on it”.

Taghizadeh, the Captain of Iran appreciated the supporters at the stadium and said: “Thanks that we could make people happy. Malaysia is the surprise of this tournament and they were hard to be beaten”.

Siong Tay, the head coach of Malaysia expressed his satisfaction from the players and said: “we trained for almost half a year. Iranian had better tactics and were good at their blocks.”