KARACHI: The visiting Iranian volleyball coach Hamid Movahedi has said Pakistan has lot of talent and needs long term coaching programme to improve their rankings at the regional level.

“The year 2018 is very important from Pakistan’s point of view as four international events have been lined up namely Asian Youth Championship, Asian Junior Championship, Asian Games and the Asian Confederation Cup,” the 50-year-old coach, who is visiting the country for the third time, said on Thursday.

Earlier, he had visited Pakistan with the Iranian volleyball teams in 2000 and 2005.

He said 12-years back Iran and Pakistan teams were at the same level but the former returned with a bronze in the World Grand Champions Cup last year and was placed fifth at the Rio Olympics.

Movahedi, who is in the city for the last one week to supervise national women’s camp at the PSB Coaching Centre, said he leaves for Peshawar on Friday to start coaching of under-17 and under-19 teams.

The Pakistan Volleyball Federation (PVF) secretary Engineer Shah Naeem Zafar said the Iranian coach, who arrived in Pakistan in April courtesy PSB, has been working hard with the senior, junior, youth and women’s teams.

He said Pakistan’s men’s team finished 12th at the last year’s Asian men’s volleyball championship at Indonesia while the senior team was placed sixth at Islamic Solidarity Games held at Baku.

He said since his arrival in the country, the coach has picked up probables for under-18, under-20, under-23, men’s and women’s for camp and has been working hard to improve their skills..

The PVF secretary added that the result was visible when the under-23 outfit defeated national side twice sometime ago.

Talking about women’s camp, he said about 30 probables from Balochistan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Fata, Gilgit and Karachi are undergoing training in the first phase here.

To a question, he said, 11 girls from Punjab were also selected but they could not make it. However, they will be invited in the second phase.

Zafar, a former manager sports KPT, said international Masroor Yar Khan, Shafia Arshal Ali, Nomanuddin Khan, Kausar Kamran and Mazhar will supervise the women’s camp for another one week.

Published in Dawn, January 26th, 2018