Interview with Ramil Aliyev, the youngest head coach in the history of the Azerbaijan Premier League, for Idman.biz
- How is everything going?
- It's good. Our youth football club Zeytun has been active for a year now. I am currently working there.
- Recently, the number of youth football clubs has increased. But for some reason, many of them fail to remain operational. They open a club today, and close it tomorrow...
- That's not the case with us. We didn't create this club to shut it down in two days. Thank God everything is going well. The kids have good fields, quality balls, and uniforms.
- Do you think the interest in youth football in the country is satisfactory?
- There is an immense interest. Compared to previous years, the difference is quite noticeable.
- They must see potential...
- I wouldn't say so. Does a child think about money?
- Well, an adult might.
- The adults are driven by the children. Parents often say, "My child has been tearing up the house for six months asking to play football." Children also complain that they’ve been wanting it for a long time. Sometimes after months of insisting, the parents finally take them.
- As an expert in this field, what do you think are the main factors hindering the development of youth football?
- You know, the development of a footballer is a long process. It involves many factors: the kindergarten, school, federation, healthcare, coaches, teachers, parents, and many others. This system should work as a whole. No single entity can control all of this. Imagine taking a child at five years old and guiding them through to eighteen. Everything should be approached in a complex way. If we plant the seeds of good work today, we might see initial results in five years. Everyone in this process is interconnected.
- In the current situation, which link in this chain is the weakest?
- There are many breakdowns. For instance, a talented footballer at eighteen may not even be part of the national team. After serving in the military, it's difficult to bring him back. There are also financial issues. A young player earns a very small salary and can't support himself. He even has to ask his family for money for transportation. This creates tension at home. They say, "Go drive a taxi, meet your needs." At that point, the player stops playing football and starts working. This child struggles not only to survive, but also to buy boots and pay for transportation. We know that many footballers come from underprivileged families. The most important issue is infrastructure. In such conditions, it's extremely difficult to train and hold competitions. A footballer trained on an artificial pitch will remain artificial. The lack of grass pitches is a significant problem right now. There are many reasons I could list. In short, the national team’s 0-6 loss to Sweden wasn’t caused by today's issues, it’s a result of problems accumulated over the past ten years. Yet, everyone is looking for someone to blame.
- It seems like you're defending Santos.
- Did I mention Santos?
- I felt like you were implying it.
- I’m not defending him, it’s just that he is the coach right now. The culprit is not Santos. He’s the head coach of the national team. We’re talking about the national team, not any club. Perhaps in the 0-6 loss, Santos had the least to do with it. Who is in his team? Maybe there are some players who are left out that I don’t see? A coach must be suited to the team. Apart from one or two players, the rest of the national team are players from our own league. In today’s situation, what do we need a foreign coach for? These are not trivial matters. Also, a foreign coach doesn’t come here for little money. That money could be spent on more important things. Imagine if I earn five hundred manats but use it to buy the most expensive iPhone. What kind of image does that create? A foreign coach is the same. Our team is currently going through difficult times.
- What do you think of the Azerbaijan Premier League?
- I think, given the current conditions, the situation of our championship is acceptable. The shortage of local footballers is well-known. We won’t improve unless we produce our own players. AFFA is writing a new strategy now, and there are the financial and human resources to implement it.
- So, it seems like you're optimistic about the future of football in Azerbaijan?
- Of course.
- How do you remember your own days on the field? If I’m not mistaken, your career ended due to an injury.
- When I played, it was a time when injuries accelerated the process.
- So, you would have quit even without the injury?
- You know, it was a very tough period. Imagine, Premier League clubs only had ten balls. When one burst, we would fix it ourselves and keep playing. Professional teams struggled to play. We would spend the whole season with just one shirt. The conditions you see today were not there back then.
- Are any of your former teammates still involved in football today?
- No. None of those players are in the football industry today. Many of them had the potential to be great footballers, but each of them had to turn to another field to survive. That time was completely different.
- What kept you in football?
- After the injury, I had to choose: either continue playing or do something else. Interestingly, perhaps my best years started after the injury. A gap appeared, and it felt like I started to live. Before the injury, my whole life was just football. I would leave practice and go to another session. I was so obsessed with football that I was disconnected from the rest of life. At first, I decided to stop playing football and focus on education. And that’s what I did. I pursued higher education in coaching, then furthered my skills through various training and courses. By the time I was in my last year of university, I already had a C-level coaching certificate. In 2009, I obtained my B-level, and two years later, my A-level.
- MOIK and Ravan. Which period of your career stands out the most?
Each had its own significance. It’s hard to choose between them.
- During your time as head coach of MOIK, we occasionally saw your name in connection with controversies.
- I suppose you're referring to the incident with Turan Tovuz. These are things that don't suit a coach. I’ve never had criminal incidents before. (laughs) Overall, there aren’t many such moments in my career. That was just a spontaneous reaction.
- You’ve made history as the youngest head coach to debut in the Premier League. You were only twenty-four years old at the time. How did you manage to assert authority over players older than you?
- Yes, I was entrusted with a professional team at a young age. There were players in the team who were five to six years older than me. But they understood that I was the head coach of the club. On the contrary, they tried to support me. In my opinion, leadership skills are not about age. You either have it, or you don’t.
Aytaj Sahed
Idman.biz
