Idman.biz
"There is no special explanation for the defeat. The penalty given to our goal "killed" us. Because we were playing well, the game was even, "Qarabag" was not superior to us, but after that penalty, it caused discouragement in our team."
These words were said by "Neftchi"'s French footballer Imad Faraj.
The 26-year-old striker linked the main reason for their 0:2 defeat to "Qarabag" in the XI round of the Azerbaijan Premier League to Elchin Masiyev's penalty decision in the 50th minute:
"I didn't see the episode closely. But the coach told me that there was actually no penalty there. And the referee hurried a lot - he blew the whistle and made a decision without looking at VAR. In the episodes in our favor, they look for 10 minutes for a penalty, but this time a decision was made in two minutes. That is, a penalty was given directly without wasting any time," he said in a statement to "teleqraf".
Faraj also stated that this result will not have a negative psychological impact on the team: "No, because we already know what we can do. We also know that "Qarabag" is a very good team, but today we fought equally against them. I think our next game will be better. At the beginning of the season, we were not playing well together, there were many new players in the team. But in the last three games, we were better and won all three. This is just our second defeat. We are much better now than a few months ago. I think we will be even better in the upcoming matches."
It should be noted that "Neftchi" is currently in the 7th place of the tournament table with 15 points, and "Qarabag" is in the 1st place with 23 points.
