TEHRAN – Italy rallied from two sets down to defeat Iran 3-2 (25-27, 27-29, 30-28, 25-17, 15-13) at the 2019 FIVB Volleyball Men’s World Cup on Monday at Hiroshima Green Arena.

Italy’s Dick Kooy racked up a game-high 28 points and Milad Ebadipour scored 23 points for Iran.

“First of all, congratulations to the Italian team for the victory. It was a really tough game. Maybe Italy deserved to win the first set, but for sure we deserved to win the third. But it was a really tough game and dramatic to the end. It was a really big game and congratulations again to my colleague for this victory,” Iran coach Igor Kolakovic said.

Team Melli will plsy Poland on Tuesday.

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.