Iran was not much of a troublemaker for the Olympic Champions. Russian national team won the game 3:0 and they’re heading for another score tomorrow.
The first set started with a fierce battle between the two teams. Iran went ahead 6-7, but good spiking by Dmitriy Muserskiy and Nikolay Pavlov allowed to gain one point margin by the first technical time-out. Soon the visitors regrouped and led 14-16. Russia were determined not to give up, fought back to draw level 21-21 and eventually closed the set 25-21.
The second set was an equal affair as Iran looked willing to gain a footing in this set with the score 7-8 by the first technical time-out. It was Evgeny Sivozhelez, who tied the score 12-12 and forced Julio Velasco take his first time-out. A double substitution in the Iranian team didnโt help to find the rhythm and the set was won by the Russians.
Russia started the third set with effective spiking and a time-out by Iran at 13-8 was useless as Russia continued to put pressure on the guests.
Press conference:
Iran captain Mir Saeid Marouflakrani: It was not easy to play against the Olympic champions, but we are here to learn and improve our game.
Iran coach Julio Velasco: We fought well until the middle of the third set and we did a lot of mistakes after the score of the sets was more than 20.
Russian captain Sergey Makarov: We are happy with the result of this match, but we have to go on working, since our team has a lot of new players and we didn’t have much time to work on our cooperation.
Russian coach Andrey Voronkov: I am satisfied with the result, since this is my first match as a head coach. Iran can play much better and we must be prepared for a fight tomorrow.
source:fivb
