Iran’s national volleyball team took advantage of Egypt’s low energy with a 3-0 (25-18, 25-11, 25-23) win at the Tokyo Metropolitan Gymnasium to finish their job in the FIVB Volleyball Men’s World Cup with a total of 4 wins and 7 defeats.
Seyed Mohammad Mousavi led by his post at the middle with 12 points to emerge as the Most Impressive Player; Mojtaba Mirzajanpour likewise charted 12 points.
The first set defined a battle between teams known for hard hits and heavy serves and Iran clearly demonstrated this pattern.
Mirzajanpour and Shahram Mahmoudi operated from the flanks while Mousavi instilled his presence at the net.
Egypt retaliated through the attacks of their captain Ahmed Abdelhay and hitter Badawy Mohamed Moneim but Iran proved quicker with their blocking reflexes.
Iran pulled away with 25-18 in the opening set.
By the second set, Iran continued to prove how clever they were in the blocking department where Mahmoudi and Mousavi prevailed in their crafty ways to read the trajectory of attacks, all at lightning speed.
Egypt needed to remember that they could utilize this very same skill to their favor; instead, they found themselves lagging in defence, both by the net and on the floor.
Iran stormed into a 25-11 finish in the second set, silencing the opposition in nearly all departments.
Egypt middleman Abd Elhalim Mohamed Abou cracked back-to-back kills to spark things their way in the third set and they took an 8-5 edge at the first technical timeout.
Service and attack errors soon ran up on the Egyptian side and Abdelhay was not getting set up for the solid attacks he is famed for.
Iran relaxed into a 16-13 lead by the second technical timeout, but Egypt tried to put up a challenge.
Moneim made sure that Egypt stood a fighting chance with his excellent effort from the wing.
Iran capitalized on their advantage in blocking once more to reach 25-23 at the end of the third set.
Iran’s coach Slobodan Kovac said after the match that, “today, I saw two teams playing without motivation because it’s the end of the competition and we played a little better, but nothing special,” emphasizing the need to try and understand the current problems because our first competition next year is the Olympic qualification in Japan.
Iran’s captain Mir Saeid Marouf also said that, “it was a good match for us because we finished the tournament with a win, but this tournament was not perfect for us as we could have shown a better performance,” deeming these kinds of outcomes as normal in sport.
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