Record Number of Foreign Head Coaches in Misli Premier League After 15 Years

The 17th round of the Misli Premier League was marked by the appearance of teams led by 7 foreign head coaches. Sport24.az reports with reference to the PFL website that in the first championship games of 2026, teams led by Valdas Dambrauskas ("Sabah"), Kurban Berdyev ("Turan Tovuz"), Sasha Ilic ("Sumgayit"), Andrey Demchenko ("Araz-Nakhchivan"), Yuri Vernidub ("Neftchi"), Jorj Kashkilya ("Imishli") and Kakhaber Tskhadadze ("Gabala") took to the field. However, two of them – Ilic and Tskhadadze – led their teams from outside the technical zone due to penalties.

Thus, the record of the Azerbaijan championships has been repeated after almost 15 years. The last time there were 7 foreign head coaches was in the round held on April 30 and May 1, 2011.

At that time, Kakhaber Tskhadadze ("Inter"), Almir Hurtic ("Mugan"), Tony Adams ("Gabala"), Gjoko Hadzievski ("Simurq"), Naji Shensoy ("Turan"), Mircea Rednic ("Khazar Lankaran"), Alexander Starkov ("Baku") led the teams. 

In general, such a situation has occurred only during the 2008/09 and 2011/12 seasons. The 2008/09 season went down in history as the first games of the I round with 7 foreign head coaches. In the summer of 2008, Gjoko Hadzievski ("Baku"), Valentin Khodukin ("Inter"), Anatoli Demyanenko ("Neftchi"), Roman Pokora ("Simurq"), Kakhaber Tskhadadze ("Standard"), Mustafa Yilmaz ("Turan"), Rasim Kara ("Khazar Lankaran") were at the helm.