Azerbaijani football enters 2025 on a "31-game losing streak"

The year 2024 has ended for Azerbaijan’s national football teams.

According to Idman.biz, the U-19 women’s team’s match against Cyprus on their home turf yesterday was the final official test of the year.

Concluding 2024 with a 0-3 defeat, Azerbaijani football failed to live up to even a “3” in terms of performance. Since the early years of independence and the international debut in 1994, failure has remained a constant companion of our teams.

31 defeats
Throughout 2024, our national teams played a total of 37 matches, suffering defeat in 31 of them—a staggering 83.8% loss rate. With only two victories and four draws, there’s little to console fans. Azerbaijan’s players managed to score just 15 goals while conceding a crushing 126. This equates to an average of 3.41 goals conceded per game—a complete disaster for football.
Regardless of changes in AFFA leadership, coaching staff, or football generations, the results remain consistently poor. A few scattered victories don’t signify meaningful improvement and fail to distinguish one period as better than another. In short, our football concludes yet another year with a score closer to zero—or perhaps even below zero.

What did Santos bring?
Our senior team, which typically manages one token victory per cycle, couldn’t even achieve that this time. Despite hiring renowned coach Fernando Santos, the Portuguese veteran suffered a heavy blow to his reputation due to the lack of quality players. Collecting only one point from six official matches with a goal difference of -14 in the Nations League’s C Division, the team has now been relegated to the D Division among football’s lesser nations.

No hope for improvement
The U-21 team, which represents the senior team’s immediate future, paints an equally bleak picture. Under Samir Aliyev, the team competed in the European Championship qualifiers, earning just one win in four matches in 2023. In six matches during 2024, they failed to earn a single point, losing all games while conceding 24 goals—an average of 4 per match. With such a track record, it’s hard to expect a brighter future for the senior team.

A dim future
The U-19 and U-17 teams, coached by Elkhan Abdullayev and Ilham Yadullayev, also returned empty-handed from their qualifiers. Each team earned just one point from three matches and conceded eight goals. The U-19 team scored only twice throughout the year, while the U-17 and U-21 teams scored just once each, making the U-19 team the “best” of the lot in this dismal scenario.

The best of the worst
The best result among our seven national teams came from the women’s senior team, which played eight matches in 2024. Despite six losses, the team was the only one to go undefeated in two games and even reached the playoffs of the EURO 2025 qualifiers.

Weak among the weak
The women’s U-17 and U-19 teams participated in two qualifying rounds for the 2024 and 2025 European Championships but competed in the weaker B Division. Even there, they failed to make an impression. Across 11 matches, they earned just one win—courtesy of the U-17 team under coach Nargiz Gurbanova, which also scored five goals, the most among all teams, but conceded 24. Meanwhile, the U-19 team coached by Habib Agayev lost all six matches without scoring a single goal.

Men’s Senior Team – Nations League
Sep 5: Azerbaijan 1-3 Sweden
Sep 8: Slovakia 2-0 Azerbaijan
Oct 11: Estonia 3-1 Azerbaijan
Oct 14: Azerbaijan 1-3 Slovakia
Nov 16: Azerbaijan 0-0 Estonia
Nov 19: Sweden 6-0 Azerbaijan
U-21 – European Championship Qualifiers
Mar 22: Azerbaijan 1-5 England
Mar 26: Azerbaijan 0-3 Ukraine
Sep 6: Luxembourg 2-0 Azerbaijan
Sep 10: Azerbaijan 0-2 Serbia
Oct 12: Northern Ireland 5-0 Azerbaijan
Oct 15: England 7-0 Azerbaijan
U-19 – European Championship Qualifiers
Nov 13: Azerbaijan 0-2 Iceland
Nov 16: Ireland 4-0 Azerbaijan
Nov 19: Moldova 2-2 Azerbaijan
U-17 – European Championship Qualifiers
Nov 13: Hungary 4-0 Azerbaijan
Nov 16: Greece 3-0 Azerbaijan
Nov 19: Azerbaijan 1-1 Romania
Women’s Senior Team – European Championship Qualifiers
Apr 5: Hungary 1-1 Azerbaijan
Apr 9: Azerbaijan 0-4 Switzerland
May 31: Türkiye 1-0 Azerbaijan
Jun 4: Azerbaijan 0-1 Türkiye
Jul 12: Azerbaijan 0-5 Hungary
Jul 16: Switzerland 3-0 Azerbaijan
Oct 25: Azerbaijan 1-4 Portugal
Oct 29: Portugal 4-0 Azerbaijan
U-19 Women – European Championship Qualifiers
Apr 3: Montenegro 4-0 Azerbaijan
Apr 6: Bulgaria 1-0 Azerbaijan
Apr 12: Azerbaijan 0-4 Latvia
Nov 26: Switzerland 8-0 Azerbaijan
Nov 29: Estonia 3-0 Azerbaijan
Dec 2: Azerbaijan 0-3 Cyprus
U-17 Women – European Championship Qualifiers
Mar 14: Bulgaria 6-1 Azerbaijan
Mar 17: Slovenia 4-0 Azerbaijan
Mar 20: Azerbaijan 4-1 Moldova
Oct 30: Serbia 10-0 Azerbaijan
Nov 2: Azerbaijan 0-3 Luxembourg