Surprise package Qarabag out to extend dream start to Champions League against Athletic Club

Azerbaijani side have won their opening two games having come through gruelling qualifying process

Qarabag players celebrate scoring their first goal against FC Copenhagen. Reuters

The teams at the top of the Champions League table are hardly surprising. Established giants like Bayern Munich, Real Madrid, Paris Saint-Germain, Inter Milan and Arsenal all have perfect records.

So has another less familiar team – Qarabag – the Azerbaijani champions, the team ranked 57th in Uefa’s coefficient.

Qarabag beat Benfica away 3-2 in the first game, coming from 2-0 down in Lisbon before grabbing an 86th-minute winner.

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In their second group game, they defeated FC Copenhagen 2-0 in Baku. That was their eighth European game this season since they had to come through three qualifying rounds to reach the league stage.

Starting in July, Qarabag defeated Republic of Ireland’s champions Shelbourne home and away, then advanced past North Macedonia’s best side Shkendija 6-1 on aggregate with two more wins.

A final play-off round against Hungary’s Ferencvaros saw Qarabag win 3-1 in Budapest with three second-half goals, a cushion sufficient to help them advance at home despite a 3-2 defeat.

That meant no Hungarian team in the 36-team Champions League. There are no teams from Ukraine, Poland, Switzerland, Austria, Romania, Bulgaria or any from the former Yugoslavia in a competition skewed towards wealthier Western European teams, with Qarabag one of the few teams from the east.

Qarabag play their European home games at the 31,000-seater Tofiq Bahramov Republican Stadium, where they’ll host world champions Chelsea on November 5, before tough games against Napoli away, Ajax and Eintracht Frankfurt at home.

Liverpool away will conclude their eight-game group stage. All the matches have been a sell-out so far, with Champions League football attracting far more interest than domestic games.

Again, the Champions League home games will be played in Baku’s Republican Stadium rather than the 5,000-capacity Azersun Arena which is used for domestic games in a league where the average crowds are just 1,500, yet Qarabag originally hail from Agdam, which was largely destroyed and turned into a ghost town in the first Nagorno-Karabakh conflict of 1988-94 between Azerbaijan and Armenian-backed forces.

Karabakh is the English spelling for Qarabag, but since 1993 they’ve been forced to play 360 kilometres from their home city in Baku, with the club a symbol of resilience for displaced Karabakh Azerbaijanis. The club’s motto, “Qarabag – Azerbaycanın qururu” (Karabakh–Azerbaijan’s Pride), underscores this.

Agdam came back under Azerbaijani control after a 2020 conflict and there have been discussions about a return to Agdam as it is rebuilt almost from scratch, but nothing definite is planned.

Qarabag have long been the pre-eminent domestic force. The club is owned by Azersun Holding, a major Azerbaijani conglomerate in food production and distribution, which has provided financial backing since 2001.

Their European exploits, which can account for 50 per cent of their revenue, gave them a domestic financial advantage, yet their entire squad is worth only €25 million and they lost star number 10, the Algerian Yassine Benzia, to Saudi side Al Fayha in the summer.

Long serving Azerbaijani head coach – 17 years and counting – Gurban Gurbanov was in charge when Qarabag played Champions League football for the first time in 2017-18, but they couldn’t win a game in a group alongside Chelsea, Atletico Madrid and Roma.

Several of team’s players are internationals for Azerbaijan amid a multitude of Brazilians and Cape Verde’s World Cup-bound Leandro Andrade.

Montenegrin midfielder Marko Jankovic signed from Hapoel Tel Aviv. Yet the fact that all five of their Champions League goals so far have been scored by different players shows that they’re a team – and a well-established one at that with players who’ve been there for years such as French winger Zoubir, who signed in 2018, or Colombian defender Kevin Medina, signed in 2020.

On Wednesday night they face Athletic Club in the San Mames. Manager Ernesto Valverde, who is in charge of a side that finished fourth in Spain but who’ve lost their opening two Champions League games to Arsenal and Borussia Dortmund without scoring a goal, is not underestimating them.

“Qarabag is a very dangerous team,” he said. “They are resting more than us, and they rotate a lot. That could be an advantage for them. But if we don’t win, things could get complicated.

“We have a lot of respect for Qarabag,” he added. “They’re not here for a holiday, they’re here to fight for the win, just like us. It’s a chance to get our first Champions League points.”

And also a chance for Qarabag to make it a spectacular three wins from three.