Iran qualified as a first team from their group after defeating Iraq

The 22nd  Asian Men’s Volleyball Championship started on Saturday, August 19, and was hosted by Urmia.

Iran’s national volleyball team, which defeated Hong Kong 3-0 on the second day of the competition, faced Iraq in its second group stage match today (Monday, August 21) at 19:15 and managed to defeat this team 3-1 with two wins and six points as the leading team of group one to go to the next stage of the competition.

Behrouz Atai’s players lost 25-19 to the opponent in the first set of this match, but in the second to fourth three sets, they defeated their opponents with the scores of 25-12, 25-15, and 25-14 to win the eighth match of Iran. And Iraq to achieve their fourth consecutive win in the adult age group.

In this match, the Iranian national team with the line-up of Milad Ebadipour, Seyed Mohammad Mousavi, Amin Ismailnejad, Javad Karimi, Meysam Salehi, Mohammad Valizadeh and Mohammad Reza Hazratpour as liberos, and head coach Behrouz Atai and the Iraq national team with the line-up of Hossein Nemir Shamil Kamuna, Saif Hossein Mohammad, Mantazer Yaser, Maher Adnan Abdul Wahab, Osama Saber, Islam Sachit Chelab Matrawi and Karim Hadi Saleh entered the field as liberos under the head coach of Khalid Saleh Fattah.

The start of this match was associated with the first point for Iran, and in the score of 2:2, the first video check was requested for Iran, which returned the issue in favor of the national team. Atai requested the first time-out at the score of 5-3 in favor of Iraq to prevent the opponent from scoring.

The outstanding performance of the Iraq team made Behrouz Atai request a second time out with a score of 15-12, and finally, this set ended 25-19 in favor of Iraq.

The second set started with Ismailnejad’s jumping and imperfect services, so the head coach of Iraq took a break at the score of 5 on a one-time request.

Ismailnejad’s services continued until the score was 10-1, and finally, Iraq reached the second score.

Finally, the second set ended with a flawless performance by the national team and Behrouz Atari’s changes, 25-12 in favor of the national team.

In the third set, the national team appeared robust, and by making up for the mistakes of the previous settings and with the enthusiastic support of the audience, it defeated Iraq 25-15 and took a 2-1 lead.