by Ali Ahsan
FootballPakistan.Com had a brief chat with Naser Kayani, the Pakistani Spaniard coach of the women’s football setup at Valencia CF.
Having been at Valencia’s academy setup for nearly a decade as a coach at various age levels, he was named the coach of Valencia Femenino B – the women’s reserve team – in August 2023. Sometime later, he was discovered on social media by young Pakistani football fans eager to find Pakistani heritage football people across Europe.
Naser Kayani Guerrero was born in Zaragoza, Spain to a Spanish mother named Aisha Guerrero and a Pakistani father named Sarwar Kayani. Just a month after his birth, Naser and his family moved to Pakistan where they would live in his father’s native city of Jhelum for the next 9 years. Naser did his early schooling there, playing cricket like most Pakistani youth as he grew up in Jhelum.
Afterwards, the Kayanis relocated to the USA where they would live for a year before Sarwar’s premature death. The tragedy compelled a young Naser and his mother to permanently move back to Spain.
Losing his father so early and almost immediately moving to yet another country was a difficult time for Naser, “During those early years back in Spain, I would either live with my mother in Zaragoza or stay with my uncle Rafi Kayani in Valencia who raised me like his own son. My Spanish was not good at all, as I was used to speaking Urdu/Punjabi back in Jhelum. I initially struggled in my studies but slowly gained fluency in Spanish thanks to a few friends in school. There also aren’t many Pakistanis in Zaragoza either.”
Most Pakistanis in Spain tend to live in Barcelona, majority coming from the same parts of northern Punjab (GT Road belt) where Naser’s late father had first immigrated from.
While he grew up playing cricket in Pakistan, football came late to him after he moved to Spain, “It was only when I was 11-12 years old that I started playing football in Zaragoza, eventually joining some small youth clubs in the city. I took a liking to the sport, even getting chances to play for lower division clubs across Zaragoza province as I grew older.”
However, a series of bad knee injuries in his early 20s cut short his career, “My knee was never the same by the time I was 22-23. I was forced to retire from playing, but I didn’t want to leave football because it had become a part of me.”
That’s when Naser’s mother Aisha convinced him to enter coaching, “She told me if I can no longer play, I can still be a part of football as a coach. I started taking coaching courses in Zaragoza, working on my basic licenses, and coaching in local youth teams in my city. I really started to like coaching. I would even try to coach various youth teams in Valencia whenever I visited my uncle there.”
Image courtesy Valencia CF
His eagerness to learn and ability to communicate with young kids during his coaching training soon caught the eye of Valencia CF. The La Liga giants took a liking to Naser and immediately offered him a coaching position in their academy setup. He said goodbye to Zaragoza and moved to the city on Spain’s southeastern Mediterranean coast.
“Valencia was truly my first proper club. Their academy system took me right in and I learned from an amazing group of coaches,” Naser has been at the Los Che setup for almost 10 years now and has attained Level 3 in the Spanish coaching qualifications. During that time, he also spent a while coaching in the academy of nearby La Liga club Villarreal CF.
During the past decade, he took a liking to help expand coaching opportunities for the club’s girls’ teams. “Girls are also very talented and really want to play football at the club. The focus was almost always on boys in our media and society, but girls are just as eager and willing to show how good they can be in football.”
Naser’s willingness to take charge of girls’ teams at the Valencia academy gained him further opportunities and insight at a time when women’s football began to really take off across Spain. While Valencia Femenino are now regulars in Liga F, the highest league division for Spanish women’s football, the likes of FC Barcelona Femení have become a force across Europe, winning multiple UEFA Women’s Champions League titles in recent seasons in front of capacity crowds.
The Spain national women’s team made it truly big in 2023 by winning the FIFA Women’s World Cup for the first time in their history. That world champion La Roja side even had a Valencia Femenino player in the squad, adding even more joy to Naser Kayani and the Las Ches family.
Talking about his Pakistani heritage, Naser said he is still in touch with his father’s side of the family back in Pakistan, “I visit Pakistan whenever I can, though my Urdu and Punjabi has become quite rusty due to lack of practice ever since I moved back to Spain many decades ago. Some of my cousins from Pakistan now also live in Spain so it’s always great to meet them regularly too.”
Asked if he would take up an offer to coach the Pakistan WNT in the future, Naser stated, “At the moment, I am fully focused on my coaching responsibilities at Valencia and I would like to continue at this level for a while. The current Pakistan captain Maria Khan also reached out to me last year to discuss helping some of the team’s current players in getting opportunities overseas. It’s always great to make new friends in football from around the world. Maybe sometime in the future, if I get the right offer, I’d be happy to consider the Pakistan women’s team job. I would still need a good translator though just to communicate properly in Pakistan [laughs].”
He stated that football, and especially women’s football, can make Pakistan really find its place in the world. “I know football in Pakistan requires a lot of work but trust me it will be worth it. You cannot imagine just how much football can make Pakistan become more well-known around the world. Football can become a great way for Pakistani girls to find opportunities in the world and become a source for positive change in the society.”
Lastly, he expressed his deep gratitude for the love and appreciation he received from Pakistani football fans on social media when they found out about, “I am thankful to all those people from Pakistan who reached out to me when they found out I am a football coach in Spain. I appreciate their love and support. Inshallah, I aim to keep progressing in my career and will always retain a special love for Pakistan in my heart wherever I go.”