The first opponents of the Azerbaijan national team in 2024 have been determined.
Idman.biz reports that our team will face Bulgaria, Tanzania and Mongolia in the newly organized "FIFA Series".
The exact format and schedule of the tournament to be held in Baku have not been announced. However, the competition in March is expected to take place in a round-robin format. This means that our team will face all three opponents. The application of the other option - the Olympic system, will end with our national team holding two matches.
Familiar Bulgarians
Bulgaria, another European representative that will participate in the tournament in Baku, is a familiar opponent for our team. Our team met this national team 5 times. Azerbaijan has lost 4 times with only one draw. Our football players conceded 9, scored 2 goals. Two of the previous meetings were in the qualifying stage, and three were friendlies. The goals of our team were scored by Ramiz Mammadov in 2000 and Dmitri Nazarov in 2014.
Friendly games
26.07.2000. Varna. Bulgaria - Azerbaijan - 2:1
20.02.2002. Sophia. Bulgaria - Azerbaijan -3:0
17.11.2004. Baku. Azerbaijan - Bulgaria - 0:0
EURO-2016 qualifying round
09.09.2014. Baku. Azerbaijan - Bulgaria - 1:2
13.10.2015. Sophia. Bulgaria - Azerbaijan -2:0
The discovery of Africa
The match of the Azerbaijan national team with Tanzania will go down in our football history. Our team, which played its first official match in 1992, has never faced an African representative until now. The meeting to be organized in March in Baku will be the first in history.
So far, our team has met with representatives of Europe, Asia and CONCACAF. After "discovering" one of these three foreign confederations, our national team, which has not faced the teams of South America, Africa and Oceania, will remain two continents that we have not met.
19th competitor from Asia
Our national team, which has played 44 games with Asian teams, has never faced Mongolia. So far, 18 teams of this continent have competed against Azerbaijan. At different times, our nation met with Bahrain, India, Iran, Iraq, Japan, Jordan, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Oman, Palestine, Philippines, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, UAE and Uzbekistan. Mongolia will be the 19th country on this list. But another point should be noted. Kazakhstan national team met with our team before and after changing Asia to Europe.
Who will be the 71st?
The Azerbaijan national team, which was formed 32 years ago, has played 295 games so far. Teams of 70 countries competed against our national team in official tournaments and friendly matches. Two more competitors will join the list at the tournament in March. The identity of the 71st competitor will be determined after the schedule and format of the competition is determined. One from Mongolia and Tanzania will be the 71st and the other will be the 72nd. Of course, if the tournament is held with the Olympic system consisting of semifinals and finals, it is possible not to meet one of them.
Who are the competitors?
The identity of the opponents in the "FIFA Series" is also interesting. To know their strength, it is enough to look at the FIFA rating. Bulgaria is considered the favorite of the mini-tournament in Baku. The European representative is currently the 81st team on the planet with 1289.90 points.
Azerbaijan, which is 114th, has 1174.22 points. Our team will be second in terms of strength in the tournament in Baku.
Tanzania is only 7 places behind us in the FIFA ranking. Africans with 1155.19 points ranked 121st.
Mongolia is considered one of the weakest teams in the world. The Asians are 190th with 889.16 points out of 210 teams. They are one of the weakest 21 teams.
Note that this tournament is intended to replace friendly games.
Vugar Kheyrullayev
Idman.biz
