Below are the opinions expressed by head coach Gianni De Biasi and team captain Emin Mahmudov at a press conference organized before the Azerbaijan-Sweden match, which is to be played tomorrow at the Republic Stadium named after Tofig Bahramov as part of the qualifying tournament of EURO-2024:
Gianni De Biasi: ”We will try our best to achieve a good result in the match tomorrow. As a team we play with our full strength and even more. Noone can say that we do not do our best on the pitch. Naturally, I also want to win in each game. We commit mistakes in in defense or attack, and it costs us high. But we should consider our opponents as well. If we win tomorrow, we will reach the Swedish team in the group. We are keen on making this to happen. Then we will think about the last match in the group.
We will have two hard games in a short time. I will try to give a chance to everyone. The reason behind my inviting 27 players is 4 people are on the yellow card limit.If any of them gets a yellow card he will miss the next match. Only Emil Safarov has a problem with his leg in the squad. He is an excellent player and can bring a lot of benefit to the national team in future. Alas, he will not be able to play in the match with Sweden. He might be ready for the match with Belgium.
Tomorrow I am expecting goals not only from the forwards, but from everyone. As the forward is closer to the opponent's goal they have more chances to score. We have a lot of good forwards. We have high hopes for Musa, he is a young player. He started a new experience outside of Azerbaijan. He has a very good sense of goal. He plays especially well inside the penalty area.”
Emin Makhmudov: “We will play against a good team. The opposing team has many quality players. We will try to stop them. We will do our best to show a successful game.
We go to every match to win. But we also know that we are playing against difficult opponents. Although our opponent is strong, we will try to achieve a good result. Losing the first game was bad for us. Since we had the ball in the first 60 minutes, we tried to build attacks. We want to compensate for the heavy defeat in Sweden."