Iran Eases Past China: VNL
TEHRAN (Tasnim) - Iran overpowered China in straight sets (25-19, 25-20, 25-15) during week three of the Volleyball Nations League (VNL) on Friday.
In the match was held in Ufa Arena in Russia, Chuan Jiang was top scorer in the VNL on 128 points and can now add another 13.
Amir Ghafour led Iran with 19 points.
Iran has been scheduled to face Brazil on Saturday.
It was a replay of the 2011 Asian Championship final, when Iran won its first Asian title, and it was again its setter who ran the show. Mir Saeid Marouflakrani, more commonly known as Marouf, is the captain and orchestrator for his team and after the match commented that “there are no easy matches in this competition. Today our service was good and they had a lot of problems with their side-out.”
The competition is being held from May 25 to July 8 in 22 host cities.
The 16 teams compete in a round-robin format with every core team hosting a pool at least once. The teams are divided into four pools of four teams at each week and compete five weeks long, with a total of 120 matches.
The top five teams after the preliminary round join the host of the final round to compete in the final round.
The relegation takes in consideration only the 4 challenger teams. The last ranked challenger team plays the promotion play-off against the Challenger Cup winners. The winners of the play-off will qualify for the next edition as a challenger team.
