Iranian coach satisfied with junior spikers’ showing

KARACHI: Pakistan’s Iranian volleyball coach Hamid Movahedi is satisfied with the progress of his national youth and junior sides preparing for the respective continental events to be held this summer.

“The boys have learnt a lot and I am very much satisfied with their progress,” Movahedi told ‘The News’ in an interview from Peshawar on Sunday. The camp is in progress in Peshawar for the last several months.

Pakistan youth side will feature in the 12th Asian Men’s Under-18 Volleyball Championship to be held in Tabriz, Iran, from June 29 to July 6. And Pakistan junior side will take part in the 19th Asian Men’s Under-20 Volleyball Championship to be conducted at Manama, Bahrain, from July 21 to 28. Both the events will also serve as qualifiers for their respective world championships.

Movahedi said both sides had potentially ‘wonderful’ boys and they could turn to be future of Pakistan. “There is an exceptional talent in the camp but five to six players are really wonderful. I hope after two to three years Pakistan’s juniors would take the place of seniors,” said Movahedi, who lives in Istanbul, Turkey. “We have an amazing spiker Murad of Bannu, who is two metre, two centimetre tall. Ali from Punjab is two metre , five centimetre tall and Abdullah from Swabi is two metre, four centimetre tall. The trio are rare talent,” Movahedi revealed. “We have three to four such players in the camp who can play in both youth and junior teams,” the coach said.

This is the first time in history that Pakistan has also formed its youth team. “The step of forming youth team will bear fruit,” he said. The Iranian said that the pace with which Pakistan Volleyball Federation (PVF) has started working would help the country rise in Asia in volleyball in the next few years. “These days you can see activities of volleyball everywhere in the country and it’s the plus point. If the same attention towards the sport continued results would be wonderful,” the coach said. Movahedi also plans to train Pakistan’s senior side from the first week of March for the Asian Games to be held in Indonesia from August 18 to September 2. “We plan to put 20 players in the camp. We will get six months for preparation for Asian Games. Although this is not enough as you know Iran, China and Japan are too strong and always keep prepared. But we will try our level best to raise a good side for the Asian Games,” Movahedi conceded.

“Some players of Pakistan’s second senior national team would also be put in the senior team camp for the Asian Games. A couple of weeks training for the country’s second senior national team had been held in Lahore recently. It has been stopped now but will be resumed in future,” the coach said. He also informed that Pakistan would also be going to take part in the Asian Junior Beach Volleyball Championship to be held in Bangkok later next month.

“We have already picked Zarnat (Bannu) and Afaq (Peshawar) in the two-member team who are with me in the camp. I also train them for beach event,” he said. “We will try to go to Thailand a week before the event so that the boys could get some warm-up matches ahead of the competitions,” the coach said. He said that the same beach event also would serve as qualifiers for the Youth Olympics and World Junior Beach Championships. The 2018 will be an events-packed year for Pakistan as the country.

Movahedi has been serving Pakistan since April last year. Under his coaching, Pakistan has already featured in the Islamic Games, Asian Championships and World Championship qualifiers besides having taken part in a three-nation tournament in Qatar which had been held ahead of the Asian Championship 2017.