Before the match with the Polish football club ‘Visla’, the Azerbaijani team managed to beat the Macedonian team ‘Metalurg’ and ‘Portadown’ of Northern Ireland. ‘Karabakh’ won the first match with Poland 1:0. But the club’s chief coach Gurban Gurbanov said that he feared the nervousness of his team before the home match. He said that Poland will try to score quickly.
The game showed that the team took their coach’s words seriously. The score of 3:0 at half time in the match against ‘Visla’ did not leave much chance for the Polish team. In the second half, Poland managed to score two goals. The Polish coach, Henryk Kasperczak, said that the fate of the match was predetermined in the first half of the game. He said that the strength of the ‘Karabakh’ team is in the counter-attacks.
The main players of the team are local football players. Gurban Gurbanov said that they will now play matches in the European League for the right to play in the group stage of the prestigious competition. Last season the Azerbaijani club lost to the Dutch team ‘Tvente’ at this stage. Other former Soviet republics will be in this stage too. Among them are ‘Sibir’, ‘Dnepr’ and ‘Dinamo’. The Georgian team ‘Zestafoni’ lost 1:0 to Ukraine's ‘Karpaty’ and ‘Dinamo’ of Tbilisi lost to Austria's ‘Sturm’.
Georgiy Saralidze exclusively for VK
