Poland's players celebrate after their dramatic victory over Iran in five sets
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, August 9, 2016 – World champions Poland and Iran played the first five-setter in the men’s tournament at Rio 2016 Olympic Games and the fans at Maracanazinho Stadium enjoyed a terrific battle that lasted more than two hours of exciting actions.
Stephane Antiga, Coach of Poland: It was great volleyball match and an important step towards the quarterfinals for us. We could have finished earlier, but Iran played great defence. After the fourth set it was an open game for either team. I am glad we won it. Today the people watched two very good teams.
Michal Kubiak, Captain of Poland: It was a tough match for us and after the second set Iran started to play better. We knew it was going to be a tough match, but we won it. We should have ended in the fourth set when we were ahead 19-16 but we lost our concentration. It happens in sports.
Raul Lozano, Coach of Iran: All the matches against Poland are always hard and close and today it was not different. Poland played better at the beginning and then Iran improved. It was a balanced match. Congratulations to Poland for playing better at the end of the game. I think we played better than against Argentina and it is a good sign.
Saeid Marouf, Captain of Iran: We came back in the third set and I think we had the chance to win the second set. We lost the match because our mistakes.
Shahram Mahmoudi, Player of Iran: We played better in this match than in our first one. We were in good shape but then in the tie-break we didn’t play well in the last important moments, so we lost again. I am really sad we didn’t win today but we need to continue because we need to improve. We have a good team and we are ready to fight in the next three matches, so I hope we can make it to the quarterfinals.”