Bardia Sadaat collected a remarkable 23 points to be Iran’s top scorer in the match.
“It was a very good game. Cuba was a very strong team physically. Having a good analysis of their performance, we managed to win three straight sets,” said Sadaat after the match, according to Iranian volleyball federation. He said that the team will try its best in the quarterfinals.
Iran, the reigning champion, will lock horns with Russia on Wednesday in the quarterfinals.
“It was a hard game; Cuba was one of the strongest physical teams of the event. They managed to even defeat Brazil in the group stage. The team arrived at this level by playing hard matches. It was important where we would recover and we today succeeded in the first playoff. Tomorrow we will meet Russia and I’m happy that we played great today,” said the team’s coach Mohammad Vakili after the match.
The 2019 edition of FIVB Boy’s World Championship kicked off on August 21 in Tunis, Tunisia.
With two gold, two silver, and two bronze medals, Iran is the third most decorated team in the event after Brazil and Russia. Iranians won their first title in 2007 where they defeated China in the final. Iran has taken part in 11 out of 15 editions of the games so far managing to advance to the semifinal in eight ones.
MAH