Erbil, Iraq, September 8, 2022 – Six-time Iraq Super League winners South Gas Sports Club pulled off dramatic 3-1 win against Army Club at Akad Club Hall on Tuesday, December 6 to be crowned the Super Cup champions for two times in succession.
The Super Cup is held annually between the top two teams of the previous Iraq Super League. The new season of the Super League is due to start on December 9, 2022 and will run through next mid-May.
In the electrifying clash this year, Super League champions South Gas Sports Club and Army Club as the first runner-up battled it out for the prestigious Super Cup to start their new season of the Super League with a trophy in hand.
South Gas Sports Club proved they remained one of the strongest teams to be reckoned with in this year’s Super League following their hard-fought four-set 28-26, 25-17, 22-25, 25-22 win against Army Club on Tuesday.
Russian outside hitter Aleksander Petrov and Slovakian Tomas Halanda were the South Gas Sports Club’s mainstays who were instrumental in helping the team successfully retain their Super Cup title.
Alaa Khalaf, who had participated in the Asian Men’s Club Championship as head coach of South Gas Sports Club for six times, said, “The victory in the Super Cup is sweet but not as much as qualifying to the Final Four of the Asian Club Championship. Our dream is to finish among top four teams in the Asian Club Championship. In 2021, we were so close to get it but we missed only with one-set deficit”.
Due to grave concerns over the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2021 Asian Men’s Club Championship was held behind closed doors at Terminal 21 Hall in Nakhon Ratchasima, Thailand. South Gas Sports Club competed in Pool A with Kazakhstan’s Burevestnik Almaty, hosts Thailand’s Nakhon Ratchasima QminC, Kazma from Kuwait and CEB from Sri Lanka. After completion of the pool round-robin preliminaries, only top two teams from Pool A and Pool B advanced to the semifinals.
In Pool A, Burevestnik Almaty, Nakhon Ratchasima QminC and South Gas Sports Club had similar performances with three wins against one loss. However, Burevestnik Almaty had 10 points to be the first team from Pool A to make the Final Four. Nakhon Ratchasima QminC had 8 points, while South Gas bagged 7 points with just one set deficit. As a result, the host club advanced, leaving South Gas to be relegated to the lower-rated 5th-8th classification instead. South Gas Sports Club finished fifth overall, their best-ever performance in the Asian Club Championship.
In this special occasion, Abdulhadi Al-Shabib, President of Kuwait Volleyball Association and Arab Volleyball Federation, had been invited as guest of honour by Jamil Alebadi, President of Iraq Volleyball Federation, to jointly honour the Iraq national women’s team at the end of the closing ceremony.
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