Member of Parliament: There should be a spirit of victory in football, the head coach should be national

"Our national team's 0:5 defeat to Iceland is one of the heaviest defeats in our sports history. As a nation, we must bring the spirit of victory to all our relations, including sports. Just as we do this in other areas, we must be able to do it in football."

Idman.biz reports that this was stated by Hikmat Babaoglu, a member of the Milli Majlis, in his statement to Sportnet.az.

He stated that the main reason for the Azerbaijani national team's big defeat was the lack of a common collective spirit: "It seems to me that in order for this spirit to exist, the head coach of our national team must also be national. It is true that we sometimes prefer foreign experts, taking into account their experience and better knowledge of the intricacies of football. But in my opinion, football is not only a technical game event, but also a matter of collective struggle, collective spirit. Unfortunately, we didn't see that."

According to Babaoglu, each Azerbaijani player individually has certain experience and professionalism, and for this reason, it should not have been difficult to defeat a team that is not so strong, like Iceland: "The conditions we mentioned - namely the lack of team spirit, the spirit of victory - led us to such a deplorable defeat. Therefore, I think that until a certain stage - until our national team gains a common national spirit - our head coach must also be Azerbaijani. He must be able to take responsibility and become one with the team. We hope that our next head coach will be from our professionals and we will learn to fight in sports with determination and a spirit of victory."

Idman.biz