Report.az
Playing against strong opponents in the Azerbaijani championship strengthens young futsal players.
This was stated to "Report" by Ilgar Aslanov, the head coach of the Azerbaijani national futsal team under 19 years old.
The head coach of the team, which lost to Neftchi IK with a score of 0:16 in the XII round of the High League, spoke about the difficulties they faced:
"We are preparing, the children are very young. Our main difficulty is still the same as always - clubs do not release the players we like from big football. For example, two or three people were missing from the main squad in the last match. Moreover, we play against professional clubs like Neftchi, Brazilian legionnaires. That's why we get such results. We have children born in 2008, 2009, and even 2010 in our team. I collect them so that they are ready for the future. Playing against such opponents strengthens the children."
The specialist emphasized that his main mission is to train players for the main team:
"These results have negative sides, as well as positive sides. They play against strong opponents, Brazilians. My main goal is to give players to the national team. Araz-Nakhchivan and the main team are already interested in some of our players. Punhan Gasimzada, Ogtay Mahmudzada and Ismayil Ahmadov are already involved in the training camps of the national team. We also meet regularly with the head coach of the main team, Yevgeny Kuksevich, and he sees our difficulties. Problems arise when the training sessions of children playing in big football coincide."
I.Aslanov noted that perspective is more important than the place in the tournament table:
"We could have had a chance to take fourth place at the end of the season, I was offered older football players. But I refused them. Because if I let the older ones play, our own children would be left out. I don't need results, these children need to gain experience. There are promising children. For example, we found a goalkeeper born in 2011 from Sumgayit, he is very promising. Some clubs release children because they are short, but we attract them and work on them."
It should be noted that U-19 is currently in 5th place with 6 points in the tournament table of the Azerbaijan High League.
