Team Melli volleyball defeats Poland in WL-2014 Games [photos]

[Bi-honar]

Marouf and Ghaffoor playing well, otherwise a pretty bad 2nd set from Iran. All tied at 1-1. I lost count of how many serves were hit straight into the net.

Live link from last page...

[Bi-honar]

Holy shit, playing amazing in the middle of the 3rd set. Some bad serves at the beginning again, but the boys are getting it together

[Abtin]

Damn it, the Russians won the 3rd set.

[Bi-honar]

Well fought 3rd set by TM, but we lose 25-21. 2-1 For Russia (defending World League, Olympics, European & World Championship champions!!!).

[Bi-honar]

Shire Ghafour (one of our youngest players)

[Bi-honar]

5th set point for Iran in the 4th set!

[Bi-honar]

Woooooooooooooooooooooooohoooooooooooooooooooooooo ooo! Iran win the 4th, 37-35. 2-2

Ghafour definitely MVP of the game so far. Not impressed with Mousavi at all, but I hope he does better in the 5th set.

[O-ZoNe]

So what is this match for? What happens if Iran wins or loses?

[Bi-honar]

TM threw away a 5-1 lead in the 5th set to lose the set 15-8, but overall a very well fought game and GREAT performance from TM. I think the boys got a little too cocky after that 4th set win and going up 5-1 in the 5th set, Russia got a few easy points in a row and it was really to come back from that.

Nonetheless, very proud of TM and looking forward to our game against Brazil and meeting Russia again in the Final.

[jumba47]

Does the fact that we won 2 sets help us in the standing?

[Bi-honar]

So what is this match for? What happens if Iran wins or loses?

This is the final round with 2 groups of 3 Ozone jaan. The top 2 finishers in each group will criss cross the other group to play the semis and the rest is like the football WC with the final and 3rd placed team.

So, Russia will play Brazil tomorrow and we'll play Brazil the day after and we'll have to beat them to go through to the semis, which I almost have no doubt we will.

Does the fact that we won 2 sets help us in the standing?

Yes, we get 1 point from the game and at the same time took 1 away from Russia - who get 2 points instead of 3. This of course helps our standing right now as 1 point is better than 0. But we still have to beat Brazil because if we lost to them 3-2 (and the lost to Russia 3-0 or 3-1) we'd be tied with two points each, but the next tie-breaker is matches won.

You guys can read up more on this competition, format, etc. here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_FIVB_Volleyball_World_League

[Ab-Gosht]

insane intensity in this game, iran played one of its better games ever, had 5-1 in 5th set, coul not wrap it up. just like last year in WL away to italay had 13-8 in 5th but lost

[Ab-Gosht]

Does the fact that we won 2 sets help us in the standing?

yes! 1p and russia only gets 2p. Iran need to win by any margin vs brazil

[Irannn]

if Brazil beats Russia tomorrow 3-0 or 3-1 (not impossible Russia is probably tired for tomorrow) they may lose intentionally to Iran to eliminate Russia, things like that happen a lot in volleyball.

[jumba47]

damn I hope so