Neftchi Baku on Thursday, winning a tight match in Nicosia with local APOEL 3-1 for the first time in the history of football in Azerbaijan reached the group stage of the soccer competition Europe League.
Before the match, it did not seem feasible. A week ago in Baku the teams played in a draw, and to overcome the stage of the playoffs the Bakuvians not only had to play in a draw, but also to avoid the zero draw. APOEL was the absolute favorite in the pair with the successful performance of the Cyprus team in recent years in the Champions League and the Europe League, where it made its way not only into the group stage, but took a step further.
Despite the psychological pressure of local fans chanting anti-Azerbaijani and anti-Turkish slogans and raising the flag of Armenia, Neftchi from the first minute managed to seize the lead.
At the 22nd minute Javid Imamverdiyev opened the score, plunging the tribunes into shock silence. At the 30th minute, Julius Vauban doubled the score. But before going on a break the Cypriots closed the gap in the account to minimum - at the 44th minute Salim Ben Achour scored.
After the break, the Cypriots tried to take revenge, however Neftchi skillfully defended its position and made counter-attacks. In one of them, at the 60th minute, Flavinho brought the score to 3-1.
Despite the openly hostile atmosphere in the stands, where a fire was set to a Turkish flag, Neftchi yet brought the match to win.
* Neftchi began the European club competition season 2012/2013 at the third qualifying round of the Champions League. At this stage Neftchi beat Georgian Zestafoni 3-0, 2-2. However, in the second qualifying round the Baku team lost to Israeli Hapoel 0:4, 2:2.
However, the Baku club continued the fight in another UEFA club competition - the Europe League, going straight to the stage of the playoffs.
So far, the best achievement of the Azerbaijani clubs in the European competition was made by Karabakh from Agdam in the Europe League playoffs in the seasons 2009/2010 and 2010/2011. --0--
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