The team is preparing to defend its title at 2019 FIVB Boy’s World Championship which is going to start in the African country on August 21.
Iranian boys came from one set behind to defeat the powerful Brazil 3-1 on Saturday (20-25, 25-20, 25-23, 25-20). Iran had earlier defeated Cuba and Egypt in two other friendly games which are being held as a form of tournament.
“This friendly game was very useful for Iran. Tomorrow we will face the winner of Tunisia and Italy which will be the final match of the tournament and our last preparing game before the world event,” the team’s coach Mohammad Vakili said after the game against Brazil.
The 2019 edition of FIVB Boy’s World Championship will be held from August 21 to 30 in Tunis, Tunisia. According to FIVB, the 20 participating teams will be divided into four pools of five teams each and will play a round-robin tournament. The bottom-ranked team of each pool will play classification matches for 17th-20th place in a round-robin system.
Iran is seeded in Pool B of competition along with Czech Republic, Italy, Colombia, and Bulgaria. Vakili’s boys will face Bulgaria on August 22, the Czech Republic on August 23, Colombia on August 24 and Italy on August 25.
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.
- source : Mehrnews
