“If Azerbaijan’s team had played better in the selection group round of the World Championship, it would not appear in the same basket with the Armenian team. Our football players played a weak game, thus we fell into the same selection group with Armenians. This happened for the first time during past 15 years,” said former president of the Association of Football Federations of Azerbaijan (AFFA) Fuad Musayev. He stated it when commenting on the casting of lots of the selection round of the European Championship 2008 that took pace in Switzerland. Having indicated that playing matches between teams of Azerbaijan and Armenia in a neutral field is impossible, Musayev said it was rather possible for the meetings to be held in Baku and Yerevan in closed stadiums, without fans’ presence. “I cannot recall the UEFA admitting holding a match in a neutral field. I suppose if an UEFA national association requests to hold a match in a neutral field, it can result in application of sanctions. This is not politics, but football. If you can, play and win! There is nothing extraordinary if the state leaders meet. We are “lucky”, what can we do?”
In his turn former senior coach of Azerbaijan’s team Vaghif Sadygov said the Azeri team can play as equals with that of Kazakhstan, Finland, Armenia and Belgium and the match with Armenian football players will be the most important one. “If we were able to win a victory over them at the level of clubs, then we should do the same at the level of national teams. Much work should be done to that end. I believe we will gain a victory over Armenia’s national team. With Allah’s help our team will win and will make its fans happy,” he stated, reported APA agency.
