Marked for Javid Mammadov
From our football correspondent
Crisis
The terraces16 Aug 2027
The mood at Khazar has turned into something else
Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now is.
Match14 Aug 2027
No end in sight to Khazar's wait for a win
6 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Khazar has to find a result from somewhere.
Match14 Aug 2027
Khazar cannot find the net
6 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
Match14 Aug 2027
No clean sheets in sight for Khazar
6 games now with at least two against. The back line has been rearranged, the goalkeeper has been backed publicly, and the goals keep going in anyway.
Market16 Aug 2027
AZAL come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Khazar did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Squad16 Aug 2027
Tempers go at Khazar
Cəlal Hüseynov was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Squad16 Aug 2027
Javid Mammadov has improved at 33, which nobody expected
Careers are supposed to plateau and then decline, and the players who ignore that are always the ones who were listening on the training ground. 4 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
Boardroom16 Aug 2027
Graduation day at Khazar
5 boys move up, and somewhere in the building the people who coached them at twelve are quietly having the best morning of their working year. Nothing about this shows up in a result and it is why the academy exists.
Match14 Aug 2027
AZAL take the points off Khazar
Beaten 0‑2, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Boardroom2 Aug 2027
The scrutiny sharpens at Khazar
Nobody upstairs has said anything, which is the loudest thing they could do. Results buy silence in this game; the account at Khazar is running low.
Squad2 Aug 2027
A falling-out at Khazar
Cəlal Hüseynov and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad2 Aug 2027
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Karol Turek commits to Khazar for another 4 years.
Transfer targets2 Aug 2027
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
The dugout2 Aug 2027
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
Squad2 Aug 2027
Eddy Madatov falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
The dugout2 Aug 2027
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.
Market2 Aug 2027
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Ayaz Guliev’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.
Squad2 Aug 2027
Ayaz Guliev is doing the arithmetic
The table has started to be checked before the results are in, and that is always the tell. Nobody at Khazar says the word out loud, and everybody in the building is thinking it.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
The terraces19 Jul 2027
Anger at Khazar spills outside the ground
It has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
Market19 Jul 2027
AZAL come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Khazar did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Squad19 Jul 2027
Tempers go at Khazar
Cəlal Hüseynov was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Squad19 Jul 2027
At 33 the improving is meant to be over. It is not: 3 points better than the mark taken at the start of the year, which is the sort of thing that happens to players who take the boring parts of the job seriously.
Squad19 Jul 2027
Words at Khazar training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Rashad Jafarov is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
The dugout19 Jul 2027
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Market19 Jul 2027
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Khazar know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Squad19 Jul 2027
He is doing things every Saturday that nobody around him can answer. It is flattering for a season and a problem after that, and Khazar know which stage they are at.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match28 Jun 2027
Khazar sink to position 10
5 points, and a fixture list that is running out. The mathematics are not yet cruel, but they are no longer kind.
Market28 Jun 2027
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Market28 Jun 2027
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Paralimni waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Khazar is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Market28 Jun 2027
Gabala come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Khazar did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Market28 Jun 2027
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Khazar they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad28 Jun 2027
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Vicente Alfaro is 22, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad28 Jun 2027
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Khazar this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad28 Jun 2027
At 24 the improving is meant to be over. It is not: 3 points better than the mark taken at the start of the year, which is the sort of thing that happens to players who take the boring parts of the job seriously.
Squad28 Jun 2027
46 days, the medical staff say, and medical staff are optimists by profession. The team sheet will look wrong without him.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad17 May 2027
57 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Khazar lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Squad17 May 2027
A fracture rules Javid Mammadov out for 15 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Khazar will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Squad17 May 2027
A falling-out at Khazar
Oscar Naasei and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad10 May 2027
Orkhan Garayev damages knee ligaments — 65 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 65 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Squad10 May 2027
A fracture rules Javid Mammadov out for 22 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Khazar will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Squad10 May 2027
Words exchanged at Khazar
Oscar Naasei and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Squad10 May 2027
Sota Kitano falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Loan watch10 May 2027
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Khazar, and 9 appearances in 39 say he has earned the hearing.
The dugout10 May 2027
Cəlal Hüseynov is still being punished for one mistake
Nobody will confirm it and the team sheets confirm it every week. One error has bought him a spell as second choice that is already longer than the error deserved.
Boardroom10 May 2027
Wages eat 90% of everything Khazar earn
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
The dugout10 May 2027
Oscar Naasei gets picked when it counts
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Oscar Naasei is on it.
The dugout10 May 2027
The manager makes an example of Orkhan Garayev
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad3 May 2027
Orkhan Garayev damages knee ligaments — 73 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 73 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Squad3 May 2027
A fracture rules Javid Mammadov out for 30 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Khazar will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Match3 May 2027
Every point is an argument now for Khazar
Position 10 and 5 points, and the table gets read bottom-up in this part of town. The calendar has stopped being a schedule and started being a countdown.
Market3 May 2027
Rufat Jafarov hands in a written request
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Khazar can pretend not to have heard.
The dugout3 May 2027
Orkhan Garayev: that is not what I was promised
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Khazar have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Squad3 May 2027
Tempers go at Khazar
Oscar Naasei was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Squad3 May 2027
Sota Kitano falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
The dugout3 May 2027
Eddy Sheydaev knocks on the manager's door
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Khazar, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Market3 May 2027
The name of Tamkin Guseynov keeps appearing in other people's back pages. Khazar say nothing, which says plenty.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad26 Apr 2027
Orkhan Garayev damages knee ligaments — 80 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 80 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Squad26 Apr 2027
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 39 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
The terraces26 Apr 2027
The mood at Khazar has turned into something else
Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now is.
Squad26 Apr 2027
Oscar Naasei in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Khazar this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad26 Apr 2027
A row about effort at Khazar
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Cəlal Hüseynov was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout26 Apr 2027
Eddy Madatov gets it from the manager
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad19 Apr 2027
A knee injury of the worst kind for Orkhan Garayev
88 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Khazar lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad19 Apr 2027
A fracture rules Javid Mammadov out for 46 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Khazar will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Squad19 Apr 2027
Oscar Naasei in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Khazar this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad19 Apr 2027
Words at Khazar training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Sota Kitano is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
The dugout19 Apr 2027
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Market19 Apr 2027
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Khazar know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match21 Nov 2026
Chastening afternoon for Khazar
A 0‑5 beating by Sumgayit was the sort of result that empties a stadium long before the final whistle.
Squad23 Nov 2026
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 6 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Squad23 Nov 2026
Tempers go at Khazar
Oscar Naasei was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Squad23 Nov 2026
Words at Khazar training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Cəlal Hüseynov is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
The dugout23 Nov 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Javid Mammadov, and the manager let it.
Boardroom23 Nov 2026
Nobody left the Khazar dressing room in a hurry
The door stayed shut a long time after the final whistle. What was said in there is between them; whether it worked is between them and Saturday.
The dugout23 Nov 2026
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Shahriyar Mammadov after 0‑5, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
The dugout23 Nov 2026
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.
Looking ahead23 Nov 2026
Gabala next, and one man in the Khazar dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match7 Nov 2026
13 matches without a win for Khazar
The run now stands at 13, and the questions being asked around Khazar are no longer polite ones.
Squad9 Nov 2026
There were 11 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Player ratings9 Nov 2026
Two goals and a mark of 8.43 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Squad9 Nov 2026
Words exchanged at Khazar
Cəlal Hüseynov and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Match7 Nov 2026
Rashad Jafarov among the goals in a wild afternoon
6 goals in one match, Rashad Jafarov on the scoresheet, and a scoreline that will look like a misprint. Neutrals could not have asked more of Khazar and Qarabag.
Match7 Nov 2026
A bad afternoon for Khazar against Qarabag
2‑4 to Qarabag, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Squad9 Nov 2026
Oscar Naasei falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
The dugout9 Nov 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Maksim Ozobic, and the manager let it.
Player ratings9 Nov 2026
He won it back and then made something of it, which is two jobs and the reason the scoreline looks the way it does. 10 combined actions and a mark of 7.50, and not one of them will make a highlights package.
In brief
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Looking ahead
Khazar face Ravan in the game that matters most
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The dugout
The manager’s verdict
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The dugout
Javid Mammadov asks for a word with the manager
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match31 Oct 2026
12 matches without a win for Khazar
The run now stands at 12, and the questions being asked around Khazar are no longer polite ones.
Match31 Oct 2026
0‑4 to Inter, and it was every bit as bad as the number suggests. There are defeats you argue about and defeats you apologise for; this was the second kind.
The dugout2 Nov 2026
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Khazar may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Market2 Nov 2026
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Khazar, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad2 Nov 2026
Oscar Naasei in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Khazar this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad2 Nov 2026
Words at Khazar training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Cəlal Hüseynov is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
The dugout2 Nov 2026
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Boardroom2 Nov 2026
Nobody left the Khazar dressing room in a hurry
The door stayed shut a long time after the final whistle. What was said in there is between them; whether it worked is between them and Saturday.
The dugout2 Nov 2026
“I could talk about decisions and I could talk about luck. I will not. We lost.” The manager, 0‑4, and a press conference that lasted four minutes.