"Araz-Nakhchivan" Prepares for Champions League: Interview with Vice-President Mahmud Sadigov

An interview with Mahmud Sadigov, Vice-President of "Araz-Nakhchivan", the latest national futsal champion, who will represent Azerbaijan in the Champions League in the new season, to AZERTAC

- How is your preparation for the new season going?

- The team started training on the 26th of last month, although not with the full squad. We continue our preparations for the new season. Now the whole team is together. Our mood is very good. We had a test match with "Neftchi". We will face them again today. We want to see and reveal the gaps in the preparation matches. We are ambitious in all the tournaments we will compete in. The Federation also provides all possible assistance to the club to achieve success in the European Cups.

- "Araz-Nakhchivan" will face Northern Ireland's "Sparta Belfast" on August 27 in the preliminary round of the Champions League, Scotland's "PYF Saltires" a day later, and the local "Ljuti Krajišniči" (Austria) team on August 30. How do you assess their chances?

- We are currently conducting our observations. We are preparing for the Champions League at a high level. As you know, we have not been able to achieve the desired results in this tournament in recent years. In fact, we play good games, but in the end, something goes wrong and we lose. The coaching staff is watching video recordings of past matches. There is great confidence in the team.

- What do you mean by problem?

- I think that there were certain mistakes of the coaching staff here. We were lagging behind the rivals in terms of tactics and players. For example, "Araz-Nakhchivan" was considered the favorite of the match we played against the Swedish representative "Uddevalla" last season. But due to small mistakes, the opponent defeated us. We have analyzed well where we made a mistake and we do not want to repeat those things this year. We are with head coach Yevgeni Kuksevich. We always support him to achieve successful results in the Champions League.

- Are new transfers expected?

- Our team is currently fully staffed. We can take 14 players to the Champions League. There are 8 local and 7 foreign players in the team. We will keep the young goalkeeper from the U-19 team in Baku as a reserve force. If we get out of the group stage to the play-offs, there will be one more transfer.

- What are your goals in the Azerbaijan Futsal League?

- We want to become champions again and represent Azerbaijan in Europe.

İdman.biz