Volleyball: Egypt beat Iran to win second match at World Cup

Mahmoud Sheleib, Wednesday 2 Oct 2019

Egyptian Volleyball team
Egypt celebrate their second victory with defeat of Iran on Wednesday (FIVB official website)

The Egyptian volleyball team won their second match at the 2019 Volleyball World Cup held in Japan on Wednesday, defeating Iran 3-1.

The game saw early domination by the Iranian side, who won the first set (22-25), but the Egyptians returned to the fight and took the next three sets (26-24, 25-18, 26-24).

The Pharaohs had opened their time at the world tournament with a 3-1 victory over Australia.

National team skipper Ahmed Salah, who scored 21 points during the Iran game and 14 points versus Australia, explained his stable performance at the World Cup to the official website of the International Volleyball Federation (FIVB): "this is the fifth time for me to play the World Cup in Japan, so I feel like Japan is my second country and I like being here very much."

"It’s just an amazing thing that Salah will play his fifth World Cup so that’s good. All my players are inspired by him, that this will be a very good tournament to show who we are and to see what we can do," the Egyptian national team coach Gido Vermeulen told FIVB.

 

Egypt will be facing Brazil in their next game on Friday at 11am Cairo local time (GMT+2).

"What we have to improve is that we enjoy the game against them. [They’re] the Olympic champion," Vermeulen added.

"We did a good start and playing the Olympic champion is just a great experience for my team," the Dutch coach concluded.

The Volleyball World Cup includes 12 teams (Italy, Russia, Japan, Egypt, Poland, Iran, Australia, Tunisia, USA, Canada, Brazil, and Argentina).

There will be 30 matches in the first round, which takes place over five match days. Teams are divided into two pools of six teams. In the second and third rounds, teams play three other teams they had not previously played over three match days in each round and 36 matches in total.

Each team must play 11 matches in a span of 16 days, according to the official website of the International Volleyball Federation.

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