France swept Asian champions Iran to stay in contention for a ticket to the Final Four on the opening day of the last week of pool play at the 2021 FIVB Men’s Volleyball Nations League in Rimini, Italy on Monday.
France brushed off Iran in scintillating straight sets 25-21, 25-21, 25-19 to stay in the 3rd place of the 16-team standings with 29 points from 9 wins against 4 losses, while Iran had 5 wins against 8 losses to trail in 11th position with 18 points.
Stephen Boyer topscored with 17 points including 15 attacks and one effective block for France, while Meisam Salehi led Iran with 12 points and Saber Kazemi added 10 on the team’s losing efforts.
Milad Ebadipour of Iran said at the virtual Mixed Zone: “I think it wasn’t a difficult game. We are in trouble and in a difficult situation. I have nothing to say about this game. For the first time I felt ashamed to play for our National Team and I think all players feel the same. It’s a shame to play like this on this kind of level. We cannot play like this, playing like today, we have no chance. We need to change some big things.”
France’s Benjamin Toniutti said: “I think after two defeats last week we wanted to come back with victory. It’s not easy, because we started to be tired, because we played many games, but today we played a good game. We had a good quality of receptions, so it was easier to play. And I’m happy because finally after leading 2-0 we won the game 3-0.”
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