Sport24.az
The Azerbaijan national women's football team defeated Northern Ireland 2-0 in Baku as part of the qualifying round of the World Championship. Sport24.az reports that the head coach of our national team, Siyasat Asgarov, answered journalists' questions at the press conference held after the match:
- It's a very good day. We knew it would be difficult. We really wanted to win. Thank God, we got three points. We are proud of this. I thank my team. We had some dips in some minutes. There were a lot of problems in the first 20 minutes, the opponent was putting more pressure. We had a lot of mistakes. But then the team recovered and built attacks. We scored goals as we had prepared. This is also gratifying. We knew the opponent would put pressure. We had to be as careful as possible. We thought that the opponent would make a mistake and we would take advantage of it. Thank God, the girls were careful and fought to the end.
- The next game is against Hungary. How difficult will it be to restore the team?
- It is very difficult to fully restore. We have some players who are injured and could not come. We have few football players on whom we build matches. If we had a larger pool of players, it would be possible to rotate. Today was a tough game. We will go to Hungary. We have a way to go. We will do our best to get the girls ready for the game. We know the strength of Hungary. It will be difficult for us. Hungary is playing Andorra away. They are also away.
- The head referee did not award a penalty to the opponent's goal and did not show a red card to the opponent's player. But you didn't protest that much. Did you do this because there was no VAR? That is, your protest would not be useful...
- Actually, we protested. The 4th referee approached us after a few episodes and said that he would give us a card. I also had a yellow card. Even though we protested, the head referee continued the game. I think there was a penalty and a red card. The interesting thing is that it was in front of the head referee's eyes. The main thing is that we won. Even if a penalty was not awarded, we scored a goal.
- Hungary is a familiar opponent for you, you were able to get one point from them a year ago. Will it be possible to repeat this at least?
- Our idea is to get a minimum of one point from Hungary. We were mainly focused on the match with North Macedonia. They and Andorra are also our rivals. But Hungary is our main rival. Hungary has dropped from A to B and then to the C pot. I don't know what problems there are that are causing the drop. But the players are very good, the team is also good. Yes, we had taken points from the Hungarians. We will try to repeat that score at a minimum. God willing, we are going there for a minimum of one point.
