Italy get back on Iran ahead of VNL debut

Reigning world champions Italy ended their preparations for the Volleyball Nations League 2025 on a high note as the Europeans swept Iran in their third and last friendly match of the season, held in Padova, on Saturday.

Before topping the Asians in front of almost 3,000 of their home fans, the Italians had downed Germany in the tie-breaker a week ago in Munich and lost to Iran also in five sets on Friday, in Cavalese.

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Saturday’s match in Padova was entirely dominated by the Italians, who displayed improved chemistry to top the Iranians 3-0 (25-22, 25-23, 25-19). Italian outside hitter Luca Porro was the match MVP and scored a team-high 15 points – opposite Kamil Rychlicki added 13 and outside hitter Mattia Bottolo, 11. On the Iranian side, outside hitter Poriya Hossein was the most productive, with nine points.

“We are happy with our victory and our performance,” Porro reflected. “We feel like the understanding is improving in every match. I’m satisfied with what we managed to present tonight and the importance of this match for us goes well beyond the result.”

When the teams met for the first time, on Friday, the Iranians recovered from a first-set loss to take home a 3-2 (23-25, 25-18, 14-25, 25-21, 15-11) victory. Outside hitter Ali Haghparast led the Asian offense with 15 points, while middle blocker Matin Ahmadi scored 13. Opposite Yuri Romanò produced a match-high 16 points for the Italians.

“It was really important to be able to play these three matches with players who are new to the national team,” head coach Ferdinando De Giorgi said. “These were great matches, which gave us important indications of how the team is working. I’m happy with how the team managed to resolve the problems we had. The first match was very intense and we had many ups and downs, but today I felt the team was more confident and that’s part of our growth as well.”

Following the preparation matches, Italy will head to Quebec to start their VNL campaign from June 11-15 – hosts Canada, Bulgaria, Argentina, France and Germany are the other teams in the pool. Iran will be in Rio de Janeiro, alongside hosts Brazil, the United States, Ukraine, Slovenia and Cuba.

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