Press TV - The Iran mens national volleyball team has lost to Canada, accepting its second consecutive defeat in the second week of the 2018 Fdration Internationale de Volleyball (FIVB) Volleyball Men's Nations League.
On Sunday, the Iranian side, which had captain Saeid Marouf, Amir Ghafour, Seyyed Mohammad Mousavi, Ali Shafiei, Mojtaba Mirzajanpour, Milad Ebadipour and Mehdi Marandi, in its initial lineup for the Pool 7 fixture at the indoor Estadio Aldo Cantoni arena in Argentinas western city of San Juan, conceded a 1-3 (23-25, 22-25, 25-21 and 21-25) defeat to the Canadian side.
The Canadian volleyball players started the match energetically, and presented neat serves and attacks to go on earning points and finally closed the set at 25-23.
The outcome of the first set in favor of Canada prompted an immediate reaction from the Iranian team.
The Canadians, however, asserted their domination on court as the match progressed and sealed the second set off at 25-22.
The Iranian squad fought back in the third set and caught up in the score, and finally could grab the set 25-21 at last.
The Canadian team managed to reclaim the lead in the fourth set, and went on racking up points to finally clinch a 25-21 victory.
Ghafour of Iran topped the scorers chart of the match with 19 points. Canadas Ryan Joseph Sclater accumulated 18 points for his side.
The Iran mens national volleyball team is scheduled to play against China on Friday.
The2018 FIVB Volleyball Men's Nations League kicked off on May 25, and will run through July 8 in 22 host cities.
A total of 16 teams compete in a round-robin format with every core team hosting a pool at least once.
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The photo shows a view of the match between Iran (players in blue) and Canada at the 2018 FIVB Volleyball Men's Nations League in San Juan, Argentina, on June 3, 2018.[/caption]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.
