Marked for Denis Sharapov
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad11 Sep 2028
A knee injury of the worst kind for Abdallah Aberkane
105 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.
Squad11 Sep 2028
There were 8 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 ratings11 Sep 2028
Two goals and a mark of 8.29 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Match9 Sep 2028
AZAL cannot stop winning
3 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
Squad11 Sep 2028
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.
Match9 Sep 2028
AZAL get the job done against Inter
A 3‑1 win over Inter, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Squad11 Sep 2028
Words at AZAL training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Vüqar Mustafayev 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.
Match9 Sep 2028
Inter blown away early
There is a particular helplessness in conceding 2 times before the twentieth minute. Inter tried to reorganise, AZAL did not allow it, and the result was written long before it was confirmed.
Market11 Sep 2028
Elvin Camalov is free to find somewhere else
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at AZAL has been clear about where Elvin Camalov stands, which is more than many ever get.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad28 Aug 2028
A knee injury of the worst kind for Abdallah Aberkane
119 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.
Squad28 Aug 2028
There were 9 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.
Market28 Aug 2028
“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.
Player ratings28 Aug 2028
Two goals and a mark of 8.05 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Squad28 Aug 2028
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.
Squad28 Aug 2028
At 28 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.
Match26 Aug 2028
AZAL get the job done against Neftchi
A 3‑2 win over Neftchi, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Player ratings28 Aug 2028
Successful dribbles: 14. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Player ratings28 Aug 2028
5.76 on the card. Some afternoons a footballer looks like a man who has only just been introduced to the game, and this was one of them.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market3 Jul 2028
“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 AZAL, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad3 Jul 2028
The injury that keeps coming back, keeps being rushed back from, and quietly costs more careers than the dramatic ones. 14 days is the estimate; the honest figure depends on whether anybody is patient.
Squad3 Jul 2028
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Denis Sharapov and AZAL agree another 4 years.
Squad3 Jul 2028
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.
Squad3 Jul 2028
Words at AZAL training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Vüqar Mustafayev 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.
Boardroom3 Jul 2028
Intake day at the AZAL academy
4 arrivals, an average age nobody would call a squad, and a set of parents being shown around a building their sons will spend more time in than at home. The scouting has already happened; today is only the paperwork.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad12 Jun 2028
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Abdallah Aberkane and AZAL agree another 3 years.
Squad12 Jun 2028
Tempers go at AZAL
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.
Squad12 Jun 2028
Vüqar Mustafayev 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.
Squad12 Jun 2028
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
Boardroom12 Jun 2028
AZAL counting the cost
The accounts make uncomfortable reading. Wages first and ambition second is the order of business at AZAL now.
Market12 Jun 2028
At 36, he has seen every situation this season can produce, twice. The legs will be managed; the head is the purchase.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad28 Feb 2028
Nikita Patsenko damages knee ligaments — 27 days out
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.
Match23 Feb 2028
AZAL bow out of the cup
Zira go through and AZAL go home, 1‑1 the scoreline that did it. The dressing room will call the league the priority now, because that is what dressing rooms say.
Squad28 Feb 2028
A shoot-out is remembered by its ending, and this one ends with Denis Sharapov: 1 kept out, and a set of supporters who will describe every one of them for the next twenty years.
Market28 Feb 2028
“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.
Squad28 Feb 2028
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.
Squad28 Feb 2028
Words at AZAL training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Vüqar Mustafayev 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 ratings28 Feb 2028
Successful dribbles: 20. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Player ratings28 Feb 2028
Twelve yards, a goalkeeper guessing, and it still did not go in. He will take the next one, and every soul in the ground will hold their breath.
The terraces28 Feb 2028
Every touch is being weighed now, in print and everywhere else. Some players grow into that and some are quietly ruined by it, and nobody knows which in advance.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Match20 Nov 2027
A hiding for AZAL
Beaten 0‑3 by Qarabag, and beaten everywhere it matters. The inquest starts on the training pitch on Monday morning.
Squad22 Nov 2027
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 21 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Player ratings22 Nov 2027
Successful dribbles: 30. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
The terraces22 Nov 2027
The ground has had enough
“We travel everywhere and we get this.” 7 of the 29 senior players heard it walking off, and the ones who did not hear it were not playing.
Squad22 Nov 2027
“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.
Squad22 Nov 2027
Tempers go at AZAL
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.
Squad22 Nov 2027
Savely Anisimov 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.
Boardroom22 Nov 2027
Inquest at AZAL
The manager kept them in and said what needed saying. A response is expected on Saturday, and if it does not come the questions move upstairs.
Loan watch22 Nov 2027
“I did not go to Zira to sit and watch. I want to come back to AZAL and fight for my place.” 0 appearances in 21 matches say the rest.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match15 Sep 2027
Cup progress for AZAL
A 0‑0 win over Kapaz, a place in the next round, and the quiet arithmetic every supporter does on the walk home: how many more until a final?
Match20 Sep 2027
AZAL up to position 1
15 points on the board and a place in the leading group. Nobody at the ground is saying the word out loud yet.
Squad20 Sep 2027
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 86 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Squad20 Sep 2027
A shoot-out is remembered by its ending, and this one ends with Shahriyar Madatov: 1 kept out, and a set of supporters who will describe every one of them for the next twenty years.
Squad20 Sep 2027
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Market20 Sep 2027
Ruslan Əliyev has one foot out of the door
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around AZAL they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad20 Sep 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 AZAL this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match18 Sep 2027
Another one collected away from home
4 on the bounce on the road for AZAL. The coaches leave early, arrive at unlovely grounds in the dark, and keep coming home with three points.
Player ratings20 Sep 2027
Successful dribbles: 21. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad16 Aug 2027
Abdallah Aberkane damages knee ligaments — 35 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 35 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.
Match14 Aug 2027
Still nobody has beaten AZAL
The unbeaten run reaches 15. Some of them were wins and some were escapes, but a side that refuses to lose is a side other dressing rooms talk about.
Squad16 Aug 2027
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 121 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Market16 Aug 2027
Wagner Freitas has one foot out of the door
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around AZAL they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad16 Aug 2027
Tempers go at AZAL
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
Denis Sharapov has improved at 28, 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. 3 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
Boardroom16 Aug 2027
Graduation day at AZAL
7 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
It finished 2‑1, and it was Savely Anisimov’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to AZAL.
Market16 Aug 2027
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Tamkin Ozobic 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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad21 Jun 2027
A fracture rules Rashad Nazarov out for 40 days
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.
Market21 Jun 2027
Only the photograph left for Wagner Freitas
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Wagner Freitas will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around AZAL the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad21 Jun 2027
Tempers go at AZAL
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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad10 May 2027
Tempers go at AZAL
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.
Squad10 May 2027
Words at AZAL training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Adam Jánoš 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.
Squad10 May 2027
Pedro Ramírez is not doing himself any favours
A manager forgives a bad Saturday far more readily than a bad Tuesday, because one of them he can explain and the other one he chose. The reports this week have not been good.