World Men’s U21 Champs/Esfandiar shines in Iran’s sixth consecutive five-setter

Brno, Czech Republic, July 1, 2017 – Brno / Ceske Budejovice, Czech Republic, July 1, 2017 – Iran played in the first classification playoff for the fifth place at the FIVB Volleyball Men’s U21 World Championship in Brno on Saturday and, hardly to anyone’s surprise, it went over five sets. This was the sixth consecutive five-setter for the Iranian team at the tournament and this time it was Amirhossein Esfandiar who led the team to victory – 3-2 (25-23, 15-25, 18-25, 25-22, 15-10).

Esfandiar was the winning side’s most prolific player with 14 points, while Argentina’s Juan Horacio Bucciarelli was the best scorer of the match with 24 points.

In the first set Argentina made more mistakes and it cost them – 25-23 to Iran. However, in the second set they completely crushed the opponent on the way to a 25-15 win. Iran started well in the third set, taking a solid five-point lead, but, led by Juan Bucciarelli, the South Americans not only found the way the catch up, but also to break far away again and close the set at 25-18. The Iranians improved their spiking again in the fourth set and this time they managed to come from behind towards a 25-22 win. Argentina continued making abundant unforced errors in the tie-breaker and now it cost them the match – 15-10 and 3-2 Iran’s way.