Volleyball Nations League Iran’s decisive victory against Canada / Atai’s students took revenge on the Olympics

The fifth day of the second week of the qualifying round of the 2022 Nations League in the men’s group today (Saturday, July 25) will be followed by six matches in the cities of Quezon, Philippines and Sofia, Bulgaria.

In today’s fourth match, which was held at the “Arena Armat” hall in Sofia, the two national volleyball teams of Iran and Canada competed against each other, and Behrouz Atai’s students won in three consecutive sets with scores of 25 to 21, 27 to 25 and 25 to 18. They reached their fourth victory.

Ataii, the head coach of the Iranian national volleyball team, used Mehdi Jelveh, Amirreza Sarlak, Amirhossein Esfandiar, Milad Ebadipoor, Mohammad Taher Wadi, Amin Esmailnejad and Mohammadreza Hazratpour at the beginning of the match.

The rivalry between the two teams continued in the first moments of the first set, but from 12 points for the Iranian team, the difference became more and more to 17 points, when our men’s volleyball team was four points ahead of Canada. Josephson’s team gradually returned to the game and reduced the difference in points with the opponent. The national team continued to play hard and finally finished the first set with a score of 25 to 21 in their favor.

The Iranian team started the second set with great strength and the scores went close to each other until the technical break. Atai invited his players to be more careful in the game. The competition between the two teams continued until the number 25 was close to each other, and finally the winner of the second set of our national team was the winner with a result of 27 to 25.

In the statistics provided from the second set, Mohammad Taher Wadi was one of the players who had 63% success in different areas of the field, especially two and three. Morteza Sharifi, Ali Ramezani and Bardia Saadat came on in the second set at the request of Behrouz Atai.

The third set ended with the national team trying with less stress and more points difference in favor of Iran so that our country could experience the fifth victory in history against the Canadian national team.

More attacks, scoring points from individual mistakes of the opponent, better performance in receptions and fighting were the important points of this match. In this game, Behrouz Ataei also benefited from the presence of young players such as Amir Reza Sarlak, who is 21 years old.

Eric Lupki, Jackson Howe, Joseph Skliter, Stephen Marr, Pearson Eshchenko, Brett Walsh were the players from areas 1 to 6 of Canada, and Benjamin Josephson was the head coach.

Kolados Fabrique from France was the first referee and Alder Laszlo from Hungary was the second referee.

Mohammad Reza Davarzani, President of the Volleyball Federation, also watched the match at the Armat Sofia Arena.

This match is the tenth official match between the two teams in history, in which Canada has won the previous nine matches five times, and the result of four matches ended in favor of the Iranian national volleyball team, with which our country won five victories.

The Canadian national volleyball team has the bronze medal of the last World League (2017) and the championship of the Norska region in its honorary record.

The last match between the two teams was in the qualifying round of the Tokyo Olympics, when the Iranian team lost to Canada 3-0, and the national team made up for Tokyo’s defeat with this victory.

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