Sport24.az
After the match between "Sabah" and "Shamakhi" (0:0) in the XII round of the Misli Premier League, the head coach of the visiting team, Aykhan Abbasov, answered journalists' questions. Sport24.az reports that the expert first shared his thoughts on the match...
– We were playing against a good team. We knew that they had a series of victories in the last matches. We prepared well for the game. The performance of the players pleased us. I regret that we cannot capitalize on the moments. We miss 100% chances. We are constantly working on this. The episodes in our game plan worked out. We were waiting for Balaun's and Shuaybu's episodes. We won an important point. We will look to the future.
– What are your thoughts on the controversial episodes in the game?
– I haven't watched the replays. The tempo of the game was good. Kamranbey also allowed us to play. There were minor fouls in some moments. We react to everything on the field. Apparently, they were watching the episodes in VAR.
– You were taking off attacking players in the second half...
– We only had one striker today. Habib and Edgar are players who attack more often. We pushed Balaun forward and changed the system. The opponent was pressing us a lot. That's all we have, we wanted to do something.
– Rufat was playing as a winger today. Are you raising a new "Toral Bayramov"?
– Today's system was based on the opponent. "Sabah" is a team that can build good attacks. They keep players on the flanks and fight one-on-one. We played Rufat in attack to increase his self-confidence. Rufat is universal, maybe we will play him on the right in the future.
– It seems like you know "Sabah" better now...
– "Sabah" didn't expect this system from us today. Every team knows each other well in the championship. Today we thought about taking a risk. The understanding process in our team is already better.
– They said that the quality of football would increase after the abolition of the limit. But the quality is not visible on the field. Has the quality increased compared to last season?
– Our championship is difficult. Experts from outside also say this. Sometimes the reason why it doesn't look good is the game time, the empty stands in the stadium. If you look at the championships of Serbia, Denmark, etc., sometimes there are no corner kicks in the game. We used to play more attacking football on the field. But now the situation has changed. Tactical struggle has come to the fore. Teams can be understood, they play for the result. I do not agree with the idea that the level will increase quickly after the abolition of the limit.
– Does this pace, looking at the fast-paced championship, give the national team some hope in the future?
– There are indicators in the championship. We analyze how many minutes the game lasts. We are superior to many championships. The lowest minute in our country is 35-37. But there are countries where 30 minutes of football are played. True, everything is not ideal, we need to increase it. It is not correct to say that the national team will improve when the tempo of the championship increases. There must be competition in the team. Look, Khayal Aliyev is a key player in "Sabah". We also need to increase competition.
