Riad Rafiyev: "I experienced nostalgic feelings in Yevlakh, our team must return with a good result" - INTERVIEW - PHOTO

"No matter how good the feelings are, we are all professionals in our work, we have come to do our job."

This was stated by Riad Rafiyev, president of the "Sumgayit" club, in an interview with sportnet.az before the 18th round match of the Azerbaijan Premier League against "Karvan-Yevlakh".

We present that interview.

- As far as we know, you are from Yevlakh...

- Yes, my parents were born in Yevlakh. I also played football here in the past.

- How does it feel to come to Yevlakh?

- It feels great. We also had a training ground in Yevlakh. I went there, walked around, and felt nostalgic. I also filmed a video. I will send the video to my teammates who played here at that time so that they can share it.

- Are there any of your teammates living here?

- There are those who live here and those who live abroad.

- Is it possible to create a sense of competition in the brain when you come here?

- No matter how good the feelings are, we are all professionals in our work, we have come to do our job. We will try to return from here with a good result for our team. Of course, there is a sense of competition in all cases.

- Although you started the season well, the performance of "Sumgayit" seems to be weakening in the last games. Does this jeopardize your goals for the current season?

- Our goal is to finish the season in the highest possible places. Our team is playing very good football under the leadership of head coach Sasha Ilic. But we don't want to be satisfied with that, we intend to go further, to achieve results worthy of our city, as the "only team of the big city".

- There are referee injustices in some games of "Sumgayit", and you officially protest. Do you get discouraged because of such cases?

- If we have set goals, if we want to win and move forward, there should be no discouragement. This is unambiguous and we have no such plan.