Hamamatsu, Japan, September 10, 2015 – Iran beat Venezuela 3-0 (25-20, 25-17, 25-15) in the FIVB Volleyball Men's World Cup at Hamamatsu Arena on Thursday.
Iran coach Slobodan Kovac: "Compliments to my team. Today, this match was very good. I hope we continue to play like this. We were good in service-reception, we touched many balls, and we have something like 65 per cent in spiking, which is a very good percentage at this level. Now, we have one day rest before we play against Poland when we want to try and get a good result.
On his team's improvement: "I try to get the players to give their maximum in every game. In our first two matches they maybe came on court tired, thinking it would be easy. We beat Argentina 3-0 in the World Championship, while Tunisia doesn’t have such a big name, so we went on court like someone would give us the win. It’s not like that. We must try to fight every time. Today was the first time we went on court with good, positive energy and when we start to play like that, it’s difficult for everybody to play against us."
Iran captain Mir Saeid Marouflakrani: "We knew we were playing a strong team because they had a good performance against Argentina. But we analysed them very well and today we were able to use their errors. They had a lot of errors on their serve and that helped us a lot. Today our reception was perfect. The important thing is we got one more victory."
Venezuela coach Vincenzo Nacci: "In comparison with the two successful sets we had against Argentina, today’s match was unsatisfactory. We just attacked certain rotations but the results weren’t good, and we missed a lot on our serves. So we have to forget today’s game and concentrate on improving our strategies, and try to do better."
Venezuela captain Kervin Pinerua: "Congratulations to Iran. Today, we are quite dissatisfied. We could have played better, especially considering our two previous games."