Europe tours a must to improve standard, says volleyball coach

KARACHI: Volleyball coach Hamid Movahedi has said that Pakistan team will need tours of Europe if its standard is to improve.

“Tours of Europe are indeed a great need. If we hold camps in Europe and play against the best sides, our standard will improve,” Movahedi told ‘The News’ here on Wednesday. The coach who has worked in Iran’s competitive volleyball environment, said that without investing heavily it would be difficult to improve the standards.

“Heavy investment is a must for volleyball uplift in Pakistan,” the Istanbul-based coach said.“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 sides 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 have sound sleep and cannot take balanced diet during a camp, how can you expect him to deliver,” said Movahedi who has been working as Pakistan’s coach for the last two years.

He said that efforts would be made to hold the camp in early April to prepare for the Asian Championships and Asian Qualifiers for 2020 Olympics. “After returning from Thailand where Pakistan will compete in the Under-21 Asian Beach Volleyball Championships this month, we will try to hold a 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 is to feature in the Asian Under-23 Championships in Myanmar in summer,” the coach said.

The Asian Seniors Men’s Volleyball Championships will be hosted by Iran from September 13-21. The Asian Qualifiers for 2020 Olympics will be staged from January 6-12, 2020. The venue has not been decided yet.

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 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 don’t even have practice halls of international standard in Pakistan,” the coach said.

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

He is currently in Karachi, supervising Pakistan under-21 team’s 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 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 arrange 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 the managers’ meeting.

“The time is too short as we will reach Roi Et only four days before the event. But I will try to arrange friendly matches against Iran, Thailand, Kazakhstan and Japan,” the coach said. “One of our two teams is experienced as it 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 tours. Their players have also had the experience of foreign leagues. But we are just going directly to the event from our camp which we started on February 20,” the coach said.