TEHRAN - Head coach of Iran men's national volleyball team, Behrouz Ataei, hailed his players after defeating the powerful Poland national team in Week 3 of the 2022 Volleyball Nations League (VNL) Tuesday night.

Young outside spiker Amirhossein Esfandiar earned in 21 points to help Iran walk away with a 3-2 victory over Poland in Gdansk. Amin Esmaeilnezhad and Milad Ebadipour also earned 18 and 17 points, respectively.

“Winning in front of more than 15000 spectators in Poland is wonderful,” said Ataei after the match. “My players were able to play a fantastic game under the pressure of the hosts’ fans. The players were rewarded for all their efforts.”

Referring to the lack of international experience of some the Iranian players, the head coach of the national team stated: “Some of our players have played few games at this level and need to find themselves in tricky situations. The Nations League is a tough tournament, and this difficulty helped the young players to perform better than before in every match,” he added.

Iran sit in eighth place in the table with 14 points.

Poland were not supposed to have a difficult task against Iran; the opponents who had started rejuvenating their squad under Ataei.

The hosts team had all their key players in the match against the Asian giants, but they could not get the desired result.

Nikola Grbic, head coach of the Polish national team, also praised Iran's performance.

“I think Iran played a great match. Sometimes it happens that a team who have lower rating and have not qualified for the next round when they play against a powerful team in a packed venue it gives them a great motivation to succeed,” Grbic said.

“This match taught me that I need to know my players better and work on some weak points more. When your opponents play good volleyball, we must also play well against them,” added the 48-year-old coach.

The third week of the 2022 VNL is time for the participants to earn a place alongside hosts Italy at the men's Finals to be held in Bologna from July 20 through 24.