Dubai, United Arab Emirates, August 29, 2015 –Iran outclassed Egypt in grueling fiver setter 3-2 (25-17, 22-25, 25-12, 24-26, 15-9) in Pool A of Men's U23 World Championship. Coaches were happy with the fighting spirit of the game, while Iran's captain stated that losing the motivation affected the team.
Iran’s coach Akbari Payman:
“I want to congratulate Egypt’s team for playing very well in this match against us. Our loss in the previous match affected us greatly and today it was very hard for us to motivate our players to do their best as they know that no chance of being within top four teams. Nonetheless, we aspired to win to maintain our prestige. Previously, we played two bad matches. Thankfully this time we were able to win. However, I’d like to point something out; Brazil’s team, who previously won this championship in 2013, was also unable to make it to the top four teams. I believe that this time, the skills that we were up against were much harder than before. Today, although my team was not very motivated and did not play their best, were able to win.”
Iran’s captain Fayazi Pourya:
“It was a great match but I think we didn’t play well. Yesterday, when we lost it affected us mentally; we understood that we would not make it to the top four teams. That’s why it was hard to find motivation to play today. For now, we will focus on the coming match against Argentina and hope to win.”
Egypt’s coach Grzegorz Rys:
“Our team is younger than all the other teams by 2 years so I think we are still in need for a lot of experiences and matches such as this one. Now I want to say that I’m very proud that we played 5 sets however the first 2 sets were horrible and I’m not proud with the results of course but at least we tried as best as we can to finish this game by winning. I think this was a good experience for the preparation of the team for the coming championship we are going to have in Mexico. And of course I want to congratulate for the Iranian team and for their winning.“
Egypt’s captain Ahmed Shafik:
“It was a perfect match and I think we did a great job. Unfortunately, there is a huge difference in the knowledge between the two teams but I think that we played well this match compared to other matches we just had. I want to congratulate Iran for their big effort especially that they are a really well experienced team so we really have the honor to play against such team.“