AZERBAIJANI-EUROPEAN-AFRICAN-BRAZILIAN STEW

The Azerbaijani national football team have just played their first matches of the year in the Alma TV tournament in Kazakhstan, fielding a side with another influx of naturalized Azerbaijanis.

Three more naturalized overseas players joined the 22-man squad. They could play in the upcoming Euro-2008 qualifiers against Poland (24 March) and Finland (28 March). Our "new Azerbaijanis" are Baku Olympic's 22-year-old Nigerian defender Usmin Nduk, Yevlax Karvan's 25-year-old Brazilian playmaker Marcus Ferreira and Baku Neftci's 24-year-old Serbian forward Branimir Subasic. This brings the number of foreign players in the national squad to nine. Russians Sergey Sokolov and Yuriy Muzyka, Brazilians Leandro Gomes, Andre Ladaga and Ernani Pereira and Ukrainian Oleksandr Chertoganov have already pulled on the national jersey under the current management (while playing for Azerbaijan Sergey Sokolov was charged with doping and disqualified for 18 months). We've now got foreigners in every position other than in goal.  

The latest influx of foreign forces into the national squad has received a mixed reaction amongst the public and in football circles. You can understand those who don't like it: nine foreign footballers at once in the squad is going too far. It's quite possible that a team could take to the field with eight foreigners (since Sokolov is disqualified) and only three genuine Azerbaijanis, and one of them the goalkeeper. The Azerbaijani team is becoming an international side team representing three continents, Europe, Africa and South America, and Azerbaijani footballers will be just an afterthought. It's absurd but it could happen.

However, on closer examination of the problem it's easier to understand the Azerbaijani national coach, Sahin Diniyev. Since there is a lack of local players, the coach had little choice but to use the services of foreign players. Although they are not international stars, they are still better than most of the national players. Sahin Diniyev resorted to bringing in foreign players after Ukraine inflicted a crushing 6-0 friendly defeat. Diniyev completely shook up the squad for the first Euro-2008 qualifier against Serbia and brought in foreign players for the first time as coach. It is also understandable if you remember that Diniyev has the most important games of his coaching career coming up this year, let's not be afraid to say this, the two matches against our main rival Armenia.

The inclusion of eight foreign players in the squad for an international tournament in Kazakhstan does not mean that they will all be called up to the national team for the European Championship qualifiers. The games in Kazakhstan provided an opportunity to choose the best mix of national and foreign cuisine out of the stew of foreign and Azerbaijani footballers. A tasty dish has to be created for the fans; in other words, it has to lead to a good performance by the team in the Euro-2008 qualifiers.

As for the Alma TV tournament itself, although Sahin Diniyev's proteges did not win the competition, they performed well. Our team began the tournament with a 1-0 victory over Uzbekistan. This was Sahin Diniyev's first win as national coach, the team's first win this year and, in fact, the first win for a few years. The outstanding player in the team was a foreigner: Serbian Branimir Subasic scored in his debut for Azerbaijan. This was the team's second goal in international football under Sahin Diniyev. The first was by the man-of-the-match, Brazilian Andre Ladaga, in the European qualifier against Kazakhstan.

Azerbaijan also suffered their first defeat of the year in the tournament, losing 1-0 to Kazakhstan. Azerbaijan got another win in their final match, beating Kyrgyzstan 1-0. For the first time in a long while our best player was an Azerbaijani, Vaqif Cavadov, a forward from the Agdam team, Karabakh. However, he didn't learn his game at home, he played for a long time in CSKA Moscow's reserves. So we cannot say that a real Azerbaijani player has scored. Azerbaijan came second in the tournament, behind Kazakhstan.

The most important task for Sahin Diniyev now is to pick the best squad for the matches against Poland and Finland. It's the competitive qualifiers for Euro-2008 that will show whether the experiments with the national team are right and how much our game has changed compared to last year.

One more thing is worth mentioning that does not directly concern the changes in the national squad but does concern the team itself. The new president of European football's governing body UEFA, Michel Platini, commented to journalists that it would be best for Azerbaijan and Armenia to play their matches on neutral ground. Of course, this remark doesn't necessarily mean anything, although it was made by the head of UEFA, and is not even a recommendation for the special commission that is deciding the issue. But if the European football president himself favours this option, then probably most European football officials will share the same view. This means that the matches between the Azerbaijani and Armenian national teams will actually take place. If the decision is taken to play these matches home and away, then they probably won't happen, as our team won't go to Armenia and will not receive the Armenians at home.