"I was at AFFA 3-4 days ago. We were talking about these games with the Secretary General, the topic went to children's football, problems... We realized that we have been talking for 4 hours."
Idman.Biz reports that these words were said by the head coach of the national football team, Aykhan Abbasov, while talking about the state of Azerbaijani football against the background of the results of the U-19 team.
Azerbaijan's U-19 team lost to the Czech Republic 1:6 in the qualifying match of the European Championship.
"It is very difficult. We have difficulties against superior opponents. Not only the main national team, but also other teams. It means we are weaker than them. If we are developing, they are taking 5 steps. If we build a field and rejoice, they build 10 of them. We will lose in this competition. But should we give up? No. We need to be a little more active, we need to solve the problems," said Abbasov.
According to the head coach, clubs are important for the development of football players: "Those football players came from the club. The work in the clubs is important. How will we approach children's football in the clubs? Children's football should be separated. Maybe it's normal. Some big clubs have very weak academies. They bring in more players from outside. We need to have a process, the number of children's teams should increase. If we don't start this, the construction of academies... If these don't happen, these scores will happen."