Pak volleyball team needs foreign tours: Movahedi

KARACHI: Pakistan’s Iranian volleyball coach Hamid Movahedi has said that Pakistan volleyball team would need tours of Europe if its standard is to improve.

“It is indeed a great need to give tours of Europe to the national team. If it holds camp in Europe and plays against the best sides its standard will be improved,” Movahedi told ‘The News’ here on Wednesday. Having worked in the competitive volleyball environment in Iran Movahedi knows that without investing heavily in volleyball it would be difficult to improve its standard. “Heavy investment is must for volleyball uplift in Pakistan,” the Istanbul-based coach stressed.

“I must tell you that ten years ago Iran was the same as Pakistan in volleyball. But it started investing heavily in the sport, sending teams to Europe for training and establishing a quality league and you see Iran is among the world’s prominent side in volleyball now,” Movahedi said.

“I believe in Pakistani players. They have great potential but they need more exposure and top playing facilities, quality foods and equipment. If a player cannot take sound sleep and cannot take balanced diet during camp so how you can expect from him that he will deliver in an event,” said Movahedi who has been working as Pakistan’s coach for the last two years. He said that in order to prepare for the Asian Championships and Asian Qualifiers for 2020 Olympics, effort would be made to hold the camp in early April.

“After returning from Thailand where Pakistan will be fielding in the Under-21 Asian Beach Volleyball Championships this month, we will try to hold camp of Pakistan’s senior side for the Asian Qualifiers for Olympics and Asian Championships in the first week of April. With this camp we will also hold a camp of Pakistan Under-23 team which will feature in the Asian Under-23 Championships in Myanmar next summer,” the coach informed.

The Asian Seniors Men’s Volleyball Championships will be hosted by Iran from September 13-21 while the Asian Qualifiers for 2020 Olympics will be staged at a yet to be decided venue from January 6-12, 2020. The Iranian, who guided Pakistan to an eighth-place finish in the 18th Asian Games in Indonesia last year, said that he did not know how Pakistan would deliver in these events. “I don’t know how we will perform. It all depends on facilities and exposure to the boys. Personally I have an ambitious preparatory plan but how to implement it is a huge problem. We even don’t have practice halls of international standard in Pakistan,” the coach said.

To a query he said that seven to eight fresh faces would be seen in the senior national team’s camp for the two key assignments. “You know we have picked seven to eight highly talented players from youth and juniors lots and I hope they will become Pakistan’s future,” Movahedi conceded.

Movahedi is currently in Karachi, supervising Pakistan’s Under-21 team camp at the Navy’s Complex in Minora. Pakistan Under-21 beach volleyball team will fly out from here for Bangkok on March 11 to feature in the Under-21 Asian Beach Volleyball Championships slated to be held in Roi Et city from March 16-18. The event will also serve as qualifiers for the Under-21 World Beach Championships to be held in Udon Thani, Thailand, from June 18-23. Pakistan will be fielding two teams of two players each in the event.

Movahedi intends to manage four practice matches for the teams during their four-day stay in Roi Et city ahead of the main event whose draws will be unveiled during managers meeting.

“The time is too short as we will hardly reach Roi Et four days before the event. But I will try to arrange friendly matches against Iran, Thailand, Kazakhstan and Japan,” the coach said.

“Our one team is experienced as it had finished fourth last year in the Asian Under-19 Beach Volleyball Championships in Thailand but the other is yet to get experience,” Movahedi said.

“The issue is that other nations will come to the event after having toured abroad and even their players have the experience of featuring in foreign leagues. But we are just going directly to the event from our camp which we hardly started on February 20,” the coach said.