TEHRAN – Iran national volleyball team lost to Russia 3-1 (25-21, 25-18, 24-26, 25-22) at the International Volleyball Federation (FIVB) Men's World Cup at the White Ring Hall in Nagano on Tuesday.

Yaroslav Podlesnykh led the Russia team with 18 points and Milad Ebadipour scored 18 points for Iran.

“In the first two sets, we were sleepy, we didn’t play well, without focus on our game. Russia were better than us in all elements, especially in service, and we didn’t find a way to solve the problems in the first two sets. In the middle of the third set we changed the situation and started to play as we know, but in the last set also, in the last period after 20-20, again Russia were really good in the service. One service was on the line, it’s not possible to cover all of the court in that moment, and that was a really important point for Russia,” Igor Kolakovic told FIVB.com.

“If you compare the number of blocks between us and Russia, it’s a big difference. This means we are not a blocker team and we can play block defense tactically, but without kill blocks because our players are not able to make a lot of kill blocks like the Russian team. Not just because the Russian team are so much taller than us, just because our game is completely different. We play with really good energy and big fight, but in the match against Russia we didn’t have it, especially in the first two sets. I hope we can continue our game with high fight and big motivation. I know this game needed a lot of energy, but we can’t play volleyball without this,” he added.

Team Melli will meet Egypt on Wednesday.

The 2019 FIVB Volleyball Men's World Cup is the 14th staging of the FIVB Volleyball Men's World Cup, contested by the senior men's national teams of the members of the Fédération Internationale de Volleyball (FIVB), the sport's global governing body. The tournament is being held in Japan from Oct. 1 to 15.

Japan played hosts for this event for the twelfth consecutive time since 1977.

This is the first time since 1989 that FIVB decided not to allocate any spots in the Olympics, due to Japan hosting the 2020 Summer Olympics.