The AZAL Courier
Squad14 Sep 2026
Rashad Garayev keeps AZAL in it on his own
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 17 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Match9 Sep 2026
The cup run ends for AZAL
0‑5 against Sumgayit, and the road stops here. Cup exits are quick deaths — no second leg, no next week, just the league from now until May.
Market14 Sep 2026
Dimitrij 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 AZAL can pretend not to have heard.
The terraces14 Sep 2026
AZAL are taken apart by Sumgayit — and the town wants answers
It finished 0-5. A cup exit is a disappointment; this was a public dismantling, and the difference between the two is the number of people who will still be talking about it in August.
Match12 Sep 2026
The wait goes on for AZAL
6 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
Match12 Sep 2026
AZAL leaking at the back
6 matches, two or more conceded in every one of them. Sides that create as much as this can live with it for a while. Nobody lives with it forever.
Match12 Sep 2026
Dimitrij Jafarov’s goal not enough for AZAL
Dimitrij Jafarov scored, and precious little else went right: 2‑3 to Inter, and a quiet walk to the dressing room.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Words at AZAL training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Fedor Bobylev 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.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
One of those days for Rahid Madatov
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.40, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
In brief
- Squad Tamkin Ozobic out for 34 days
- Player ratings Ninety minutes of Dimitrij Jafarov at his very best
- Squad Stanislav Ruban in a row with a teammate