In the "Sabiazinho" arena in Uberlândia, the Iranian team of Foolad Sirjan defeated Lube Civitanova with 3:2 sets (23-25, 25-23, 21-25, 26-24, 19-17), securing the bronze medal in the 2024 edition of the FIVB Men's Club World Championship.

This is only the second time an Iranian team has reached the top 3 of the Club World Championship. Paykan was the first to win a medal, taking third place in 2010. Civitanova was aiming for its fifth podium finish in the most prestigious club competition, after gold (2019) and three silver medals (2017, 2018, and 2021).

Head coach Gianpaolo Medei changed the starting lineup, leaving his leading scorers on the bench: Bulgarian Aleksandar Nikolov and Turkish Adis Lagumdžija. Canadian Eric Loeppky and Croatian Petar Dirlić were given a chance.
Everything could have been decided in the fourth set when Lube led by two points at the end but allowed an equalization (22:22, 23:23, 24:24), with Porya making two errors at 24:23 and 25:24.
The lineup was changed numerous times by Medei in search of a comeback, but the four missed match points, with a balance of 8 errors against 2 in the tie-break, left a bitter taste.

In the list of top scorers, Dirlić scored 21 points, followed by Mattia Bottolo with 17. In the tie-break, Lagumdžija and Nikolov were sent onto the court. But they failed to prevent Foolad's second victory over Civitanova in this competition. In the preliminary group, the Italian team again lost to the Asian champions with 2:3.

After getting injured during the semi-final against Sada Cruzeiro, Ali Hajipour once again sacrificed for the team and led the Iranian team with 24 points. In the tie-break, the team saved four match points to triumph 19:17 after an out-of-bounds attack by Lagumdžija.
Captain Fabio Balaso and his teammates must quickly re-adjust for the Challenge Cup return leg against Karadjordje Topola (Thursday, December 19, 9:30 PM) at the Eurosuole Forum and the second round of the regular season against Allianz Milano, scheduled for Sunday, December 22 (7:00 PM), once again at Lube's home.