Iran’s Paykan Tehran volleyball club has moved closer to a spot in the semifinal round of the 2015 FIVB Volleyball Men’s Club World Championship in Brazil, dominating Egyptian team Al Ahly.
The Tehran-based team stormed past Al Ahly with a straight-set win (25-19, 25-20, 25-15) in its opening preliminary round fixture staged at the Ginásio Poliesportivo Divino Braga sport complex in the Southeastern Brazilian city of Betim on Tuesday evening.
Paykan Tehran’s coach Payman Akbari fielded Valerio Vermiglio, Amir Ghafour, Saman Faezi, Nikolay Nikolov, Mojtaba Mirzajanpour, Farhad Ghaemi and Mahdi Marandi. Ahly began the game in a convincing fashion, but Paykan’s Ghafour and Mirzajanpour helped the Iranian side establish its lead and take the first set 25-19.
Paykan Tehran maintained its dazzling performance in the second set, and clinched the set by 25 points to 20.
The Iranian volleyball players, seeing themselves few steps away from the semi-final round, added up points to their tally and eventually grabbed the third set 25-15.
“I want to congratulate Ahly for the way they played. I think they had some previous information on our team and we didn’t know much about them. That’s why in the first moments we did not play so well,” Akbari, Paykan Tehran coach, said after the match.
Vermiglio, Paykan Tehran captain, said, “We had a big amount of emotions as this is a very important competition, the most important for clubs. We came to win and do our best, but we started a bit late and we had to build our mentality during the game.
Paykan Tehran will face Argentina’s UPCN Vóley Club in its second Pool B showdown on Thursday.
The 2015 FIVB Volleyball Men’s Club World Championship stared in Betim, Brazil, on October 27, and will finish on October 31.
Brazil’s Sada Cruzeiro, Russian volleyball club Zenit Kazan, and Capitanes de Arecibo fromm Puerto Rico form Pool A.
The Iranian team Paykan Tehran is drawn with Argentine UPCN Vóley Club and Egypt’s Al Ahly in Pool B.