The home team misses six match points and what would have been sensational qualification
Philippines v Iran at the Men’s Volleyball World Championship – a fantastic match in a fantastic atmosphere
Iran survived six match points for the Philippines in the nerve-wracking ending of their crucial match for advancement to the eighthfinals of the 2025 FIVB Volleyball Men’s World Championship. The epic five-setter finally went the way of the Iranians to place them second in the final Pool A standings and send them against the Pool H winners – either Serbia or Czechia – in the first knockout round, while disappointing the home crowd that filled the stands in Pasay City on Thursday.
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In this do-or-die battle, the Philippines were well in control of sets one and three and managed to step a set ahead twice in the match. Iran leveled up twice and pushed the game to a fifth set. The home team managed to recover from a 10-6 Iranian lead in the tie-breaker and was the first to reach match point. However, the much higher ranked Iranian team denied them as many as six opportunities to close the match. To turn up the drama in Pasay City, when everyone thought that the sixth match point was finally converted to a 20-18 win and the Filipino victory party had already started, a successful net touch challenge by Iran brought everyone back to square zero. With the psychological advantage now to their side, the Iranians took control and triumphed with a 3-2 (21-25, 25-21, 17-25, 25-23, 22-20) victory on a monster block by 22-year-old middle Yousef Kazemi Poshtpari at their second match point.
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In this nip-and-tuck five-set saga, Iran slightly edged the Philippines in attack by 63-62 in spike kills, and in serving by 6-5 in aces. Three players shared the top scorer honors with 22 points each, and two of them were Iranian. 21-year-old outside hitter Poriya Khanzadeh hit 19 points in offense at a 66% success rate and fired three aces. Opposite Ali Hajipour also produced 19 attacking points, at a 53% success rate, and put up three kill blocks.
“When you are playing with fear, it is difficult to play, because you are not able to analyze the situation. This is what I felt in the third set and in some moments of the fourth set, and also during the tie-breaker, when we lost some really easy balls, just because we were afraid to play those balls. We do not have a lot of experience because we changed a lot from last season, but experience cannot just be the reason,” Iran’s Italian coach Roberto Piazza told VBTV after the game. “Winning was really important and the only positive, because I know that we didn’t play at our level at this tournament until now.”
Emotional and tearful ending of the Filipino dream
Philippines’ outside and captain Bryan Bagunas also finished with 22 points. He spiked 18 points at a 60% success rate and added three blocks and an ace to his match-high tally. 22-year-old opposite Leo Ordiales scored 19 points in offense at 66% success to sign off with 21 total. The other outside, Marck Jesus Espejo, and middle blocker Kim Malabunga also reached the double digits with 15 and 10 points, respectively.
2025 FIVB Volleyball Men’s World Championship: full schedule and results
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