12/12/2024 at 00:03

On the second day of matches in the FIVB Volleyball Men’s Club World Championship, Sada Cruzeiro played a tough match against Shahdab Yazd from Iran, losing 3-1 with set scores of 18/25, 25/20, 24/26, and 25/27, at Arena Sabiazinho in Uberlândia-MG. In their opening match on Tuesday, the Celeste team had won 3-1 against Argentina’s Ciudad Volley, and now they are still fighting for a spot in the semifinals from Group B.

The match against Italian Trentino Itas, on Thursday, 12/12, at 20:30, will close the team’s group-stage commitments, and only a win matters for Sada Cruzeiro. Trentino comes into the match with two victories, over Ciudad and Shahdab Yazd.

The international tournament will be held in Uberlândia until the weekend, with semifinals on Saturday and the final on Sunday. In Group A, the teams are host Praia Clube, Egypt’s Al Ahly, Italy’s Lube Civitanova, and another Iranian team, Foolad Sirjan.

The Cruzeiro team had a tough start in the first set against the Iranians. Their serves were off, and on the other side, the opposite hitter Ghafour was disruptive with his serves, scoring two aces and several points during his serve rotations. From the second set onward, the Cruzeiro team served more strategically, focusing on ball possession, and grew in the side-out game led by Matheus Brasília. In the third and fourth sets, the match was again very close, and the Iranians were more effective with their blocks and had good individual serves.

Opposite hitter Ghafour and outside hitter Usman from the Iranian team were the top scorers, with 23 and 22 points, respectively. For Sada Cruzeiro, Wallace scored 21 points.

“It’s the World Championship, everyone wants to win. But it’s not over, tomorrow we have a really tough game against Trentino. Everything is still open, it’s possible to qualify, so we’ll study what we can improve from this game and put it into practice against them,” said opposite hitter Wallace.