The words a physio says slowly. 20 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.
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Yiğit Efe Demir scored, was marked 7.83, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
Səlahət Ağayev 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.
2‑3 to Inter, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Squad15 Nov 2027
Javid Ozobic 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 words a physio says slowly. 27 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at AZAL this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
In brief
SquadWords at AZAL training over how hard people work
The words a physio says slowly. 34 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.
“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 words a physio says slowly. 41 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.
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Maksim Huseynov scored, was marked 7.28, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at AZAL this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 6 goals between AZAL and Zira, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Yiğit Efe Demir 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.
“I watch every AZAL game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Sumgayit runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
The words a physio says slowly. 50 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.
There is no crueller way to lose a football match. AZAL scored in the 93th minute, the restart barely happened, and the away end was still standing when the whistle went.
Səlahət Ağayev 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.
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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Yiğit Efe Demir has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Yiğit Efe Demir. 1‑0 against Khazar, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Marked 8.21 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
The words a physio says slowly. 57 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.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” AZAL have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at AZAL this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Yiğit Efe Demir 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.
65 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. AZAL lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Nobody makes a documentary about a hamstring and everybody in the game fears one. AZAL will be careful with the return date, because the second one is always worse than the first.
Səlahət Ağayev 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.
72 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. AZAL lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
4 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at AZAL this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Yiğit Efe Demir 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.
81 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. AZAL lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
2 kept out in the shoot-out, and a stadium that will still be describing them in twenty years. A goalkeeper only needs one of these to be remembered forever.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 27 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
7.54, 1 on the scoresheet, and the specific comedy of a back-four player celebrating like somebody who does this every week. He does not, and that is exactly why the ground reacted the way it did.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 21 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Səlahət Ağayev 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.
6 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about AZAL and Qarabag in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
88 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. AZAL lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Yiğit Efe Demir 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.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 22 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Javid Ozobic 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.
Shots: 9. Goals: none. The chances were there and they were good ones, and they went into the stand, the goalkeeper's arms and the side netting in roughly that order.
The words a physio says slowly. 96 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.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 23 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Tamkin Sheydaev has his answer from AZAL; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
104 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. AZAL lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” AZAL have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Player ratings30 Aug 2027
A brace, and Afran Jafarov takes the afternoon — 8.66
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Afran Jafarov provided it, and the 8.66 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
5 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.
Yiğit Efe Demir 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.
6 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about AZAL and Neftchi in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
The words a physio says slowly. 112 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.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” AZAL have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 14 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
4 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.
“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 AZAL, and 0 appearances in 9 say he has earned the hearing.
120 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. AZAL lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason AZAL will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
The offer from Saburtalo for Rashad Khalilzade was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 22 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at AZAL this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Samir Mammadov has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Namig Madatov has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Renat Garayev has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
In brief
Player ratingsDarluis Paz was on a different afternoon to everybody else
127 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. AZAL lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason AZAL will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 23 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Səlahət Ağayev 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.
The phone has started ringing about Rashad Khalilzade again, and this time the name on the line is Saburtalo. AZAL are listening politely and promising nothing.
Yiğit Efe Demir 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Silvester Shkalla 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 instruction has come from upstairs rather than from the dugout, which is the version of this conversation no manager enjoys. Somebody in that squad is now available whether the man who picks the team thinks so or not.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at AZAL this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason AZAL will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at AZAL this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ilhan Fakili 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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. AZAL know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason AZAL will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Ilhan Fakili 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Eddy Guseynov 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.
He found out with everybody else, an hour before kick-off, from a sheet of paper on a wall. Nobody at AZAL pretended it was anything other than a decision about him.
92 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. AZAL lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at AZAL this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Eddy Guseynov 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.