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

The 17th round of the Misli Premier League was notable for 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"), Jorge Casquilha ("Imishli") and Kakhaber Tskhadadze ("Gabala") appeared on the field. True, two of them – Ilic and Tskhadadze – led their teams from outside, not from the technical zone, due to punishment.

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

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

In general, such a case has occurred only during the 2008/09 and 2011/12 seasons so far. The 2008/09 season went down in history as the first games in the first 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 work.