It has been revealed which pot the Azerbaijani club will be placed in during the draw for the first qualifying round of the UEFA Europa League.
The club representing Azerbaijan will be unseeded in the draw, Idman.biz reports.
This is due to the low UEFA coefficients of the teams still in contention for qualification. Currently, three Azerbaijani clubs remain in the race for a Europa League spot.
To qualify, Sabah must defeat Qarabag in the Azerbaijan Cup final. Zira needs to hold onto second place in the league and hope Qarabag wins the final. As for Araz-Nakhchivan, their chances remain theoretical—they must overtake Zira for second place and rely on Qarabag to lift the cup.
All three clubs have relatively low UEFA coefficients. Zira and Sabah currently have a score of 4.000, while debutant Araz-Nakhchivan would enter with 3.925, the base value given based on the national coefficient. In all possible scenarios, the Azerbaijani club will be placed in the unseeded pot.
For context, 18 teams will compete in the first qualifying round—9 seeded and 9 unseeded.
So far, only Aktobe from Kazakhstan has officially qualified for this round and will be one of the unseeded teams. A club from Kosovo is also expected to join the unseeded pot alongside the Azerbaijani representative. The identities and pots of the remaining 15 clubs are yet to be determined.
The draw for the first qualifying round of the Europa League will take place on June 17.
Vugar Kheyrullayev
Idman.biz
