THE LOSER

It would be naive to wait for medals from the Azerbaijani national futsal team at Euro 2016. Loyal fans were hoping for a decent performance while coaches - to make it to the next stage maximum.

As a result, the Azerbaijani futsal players held three games at the European Championships and won only one.

Having lost to Italy with a score of 0:3 in the first match, the national team was able to beat the Czech Republic in the second game. However, despite the victory with a score of 6:5, meaningless performance and mistakes confirmed the deplorable state of the team. In addition, even this victory did not guarantee that the Azerbaijani national team would make it to the next stage. The team made it into the quarterfinals only thanks to Italy's victory over the Czech Republic.

In the playoff, Azerbaijan competed with Russia, which was considered one of the favourites of the tournament. One would expect that Azerbaijan head coach Faustino Perez, who led Moscow Dinamo for a long time, would apply special tactics in this game. However, the starting lineup showed that the head coach who bet on the Brazilians from the first minute did not really believe in success. And the game showed that the Augusto-Eduardo-Rafael-Amadeu quartet was not able to fight the Russians on equal terms. As a result, the Azerbaijani team lost with a huge score of 2:6 and ended its fight at the quarterfinal stage.

Scoring eight goals and conceding 14 in the continental championship held in Serbia, the national team achieved the second result in the history of Azerbaijani futsal. Completing the games in Group Euro 2012 and Euro 2014 without points, the Azerbaijani national team made it to the playoffs for the second time. In general, our national team has played in 10 championships of the continent. And in the first six tournaments, the team was not able to go further than the qualifying stage.

As for the results of other matches of the quarterfinals, the defeat of the last European champion Italy from Kazakhstan with a score of 2:5 was a sensation of the tournament. Ukraine lost to Serbia (2:5), and Portugal to Spain (2:6). If we consider other indicators, Azerbaijan completed the championship of the continent in the 8th place.

In general, the Azerbaijani national team at the European Championship in Serbia failed to show its best performance. Not only local players, but also naturalized Brazilians were remembered for nothing. The fact that the Azerbaijani national team reached the quarterfinals should not be considered a success, although it does not deserve more in its current state. Had the group included not the Czech Republic but another team, there would have been much less chances to make it to the next stage. It must be admitted that the Czech Republic was the weakest team in this tournament.

In the national team, we can highlight the play of young goalkeeper Rovsan Huseynli. With his confident attacks and spurts, the 24-year-old goalkeeper became a fan favourite. However, although they say that the goalkeeper is half the team, it was not enough to achieve success. Having built the whole game only on five major players, the head coach thus laid the foundation of failure. After all, at a continental competition it is extremely difficult to succeed using only five futsal players in all matches. It remains unclear why naturalized Sergey Chuykov, who did not play a single minute at Euro 2016, was included in the team. On the other hand, the preference given to the naturalized Brazilians once again confirmed the absence of a futsal school in the country.

Beating the last champion of the continent Italy at Euro 2016, Kazakhstan demonstrated how to develop futsal. Efficiently using funds allocated at the time of financial wealth, the Kazakhs were able to train good players. In the championship, their striker Serik Zamankulov was among the scorers with five goals. With his goals scored against such teams as Italy, Croatia, Russia and Spain, he became the focus of attention in the entire continent. Today, along with Zamankulov, the backbone of the Kazakhstan national team is also such local futsal players as Chingiz Yesenemanov and Dinmuhamet Suleymanov.

There are enough talented young and capable players in Azerbaijan. You just need to properly direct them. By putting an Azerbaijani player on the bench, it is impossible to hope for his further development. Brazilians play but Azerbaijanis remain in the role of fans. You cannot become a strong player, going on the field only in the national championship. It is necessary to create conditions for local futsal players so they can gain experience in international tournaments. Otherwise, at every European Championship we will only rely on Brazilians. In the end, the foreign legionnaires will be the winners and our futsal - the loser.

Head coach Faustino Perez could not find words to justify the performance of the team. In an interview with R+, the foreign specialist stated his unwillingness to speak at length: "If you lose, there is no need for a long speech. Of course, we didn't want to lose. In the match with Russia, we had goal-scoring moments, but couldn't take advantage of them. The opponent was able to win at the expense of experience. The huge score is due to the fact that in the last 2 minutes we risked more."

Goalkeeper Rovsan Huseynli pointed to the lack of experience in the team. According to him, the reason for the termination of the struggle in the quarterfinals was bad luck: "I think the only thing we lack is experience. There is a big difference in the level of our championships. Although we very much wanted to get into the semifinals, it didn't happen. I think we ended our performance at the European Championships ahead of time. We could have beaten Russia. We wanted to write a new page in history. We failed. As for my play, I could have done better. There are things I need to work on more. In general, I managed to have my say. Although I'm only 24 years old, I made the most saves. This is a great success."

The president of the Futsal Federation, Zaur Axundov, agreed with the criticism, noting that the team performed poorly and spoke about the planned reforms: "Euro 2016 ended badly for us. The results can't be called otherwise, even despite the fact that we were among the eight strongest teams. Most of all I'm unhappy with the performance of the local futsal players. I expected more from them. After the successful game against Italy (0:3) in the first match, the young goalkeeper Rovsan Huseynli got a swelled head. I can't put up with such phenomena in our team. In the match against the Czech Republic (6:5) and Russia (2:6), he played very badly. Unfortunately, we were not able to come to the tournament in full readiness. We couldn't find a worthy sparring partner. However, despite all this, we were able to beat the Russian national team. We just had no chances left after the weak play of the defensive line. Had we distinguished ourselves when we score was 1:1, it could have been otherwise. Playoff matches of the world championship lie ahead. We dream of reaching the final for the first time in the history of Azerbaijani futsal. Three players of the current team will not be included in the team for the World Cup. I will announce their names later. If we are unable to win a ticket to the finals, 90 per cent of the team will be replaced."

It should be noted that in March-April, the Azerbaijani team will test their strength in playoff games to win a ticket to the World Cup, which will be held in Colombia.