The head coach of our national team, Samir Aliyev, shared his views with the affa.az website after the match between Azerbaijan U-23 and Algeria U-23 played today for the 3rd place of the V Islamic Solidarity Games:
"As I said before, when we came to the tournament, we faced a number of difficulties regarding the squad, we could not bring exactly the squad we wanted. We competed with a very young squad compared to our opponents. Let's accept the fact that, we weren't so sure about getting out of the group. But the guys showed all their skills and qualified for the semi-finals. Unfortunately, we could not get to the final. There was a tough struggle for bronze medals. The course of the game also showed that the winner will be determined in the penalty shootout. In the end, we executed the penalty kicks more accurately and won.
We faced strong opponents in the tournament. We can even say that the teams were competing with their strongest players. And we mainly performed with young players, most of whom will be invited to the U-21 team in the next qualifying round. The 4 games that we played in the Islamic games were a good experience for both of us - coaches and our players. Such games will be useful for the U-21 players to get good results in the qualifiers."
