Sad tale, but good read. Unfortunately for Qarabağ, they lost 2-0 to Salzburg in the return leg after winning the home leg 2-1 (the article was written before the second leg).
http://www.thesefootballtimes.net/#!the-tormented-history-of-fk-qarabag/c22eo
THE TORMENTED HISTORY OF QARABAĞ
As Qarabağ FK continue their European journey, Matt Gault analyses the tormented history of the club and football in Azerbaijan since its separation from the Soviet Union in 1993.
Far away from the headline-dominating transfers of Luis Suárez and James Rodríguez to Barcelona and Real Madrid, the Azerbaijani capital of Baku has its own back-page delight to shout about during the summer months of 2014. Qarabağ Ağdam FK managed to see off Maltese champions Valletta 5-0 on aggregate, in the process registering their maiden triumphs in Europe’s elite club competition.
The reigning kings of Azerbaijani football are not entirely alien to European football however - they ventured into the preliminary stages of the Europa League, Intertoto Cup and Cup Winner’s Cup several times during the first twenty years of their existence - but this conquest over their fellow eastern European minnows bears a special resonance for a club who have seen it all and live to tell the story.
That victory, as with pretty much every other moment of triumph for the club, still bears the painful scars of a club in exile. Based in Baku, Qarabağ long to return to Ağdam where they would have the comfort of playing football in their birthplace. Unfortunately, that remains a pipedream for a club who have directly felt the turmoil and dismay of war on their own doorstep.
Set against the backdrop of the Nagorno-Karabakh war in the early 1990s, Qarabağ FK regularly played inside a packed Imaret stadium in Ağdam as they sought to establish themselves in European football. Sadly, it wasn’t to be. In 1993, the Imaret Stadium was occupied and subsequently bombed by forces of the Armenian Republic. There are fairytales aplenty in football but this particular enclave in south-eastern Azerbaijan was to experience only horror and urban decimation as the war between Azerbaijan and Armenia raged.
It always triggers a deep sense of regret while reading of a time when football was caught in the crossfire of war; this time was no different. Between 1992 and 1994 thousands died across the Nagorno-Karabakh region in brutal ethnic battles as the countries separated from the collapse of the Soviet Union began to feel the ripple effect of a broken empire. Ağdam was not spared. The entire population of a once bustling regional province, renowned for its bread museum, fled eastwards and left Ağdam the way it can be seen today; the world’s largest ghost town.
Qarabağ serves not just as a football club. They could easily adopt Barcelona’s motto of Més que un club - More than a club - as they stand gallantly as the descendants of a great tragedy, a mechanism simultaneously symbolising hope and pride. The club are a poignant reminder of how war torments and ravages civilisation, but ceases to kill the spirit.
Succeeding in football is scant consolation for the loss of life, identity and home, but it still stands as an outlet for rebuilding - even if the rebuilding is uniting the following of Qarabağ for the purpose of sport. When Qarabağ turn out in Baku for their home matches, they are carrying with them the spirit and pride of some half a million refugees scattered throughout Azerbaijan as a result of the conflict. Given the minor status of the Azerbaijan Premier League, the Champions League, and European football in general, gives the club, and the cause, a greater focus. They are clearly determined to make the most of the opportunity.
Qarabağ has only recently returned to the summit of Azerbaijani football, claiming their second Premier League title this year after seeing off the challenge of Inter Baku. The Horsemen have the unique distinction of being the only non-Baku club to win the Premier League. Last season’s success was a watershed moment for the club, claiming their first league title since 1993 when the war’s violence reached disastrous proportions.
That league title in 1993 was inevitably overshadowed by news of the devastation transpiring back home in Ağdam, with friends and families of the squad being displaced as the Armenian troops stepped up their occupation. Only two months had passed between the relocation of Qarabağ FK and the destruction of their stadium. The glorious achievement of 2014 won’t be viewed under the lens of war; it was a conquest liberated from that crippling association.
In recent years, Qarabağ have managed to rise above financial crisis to become a dominant force in Azerbaijan’s top tier as well as a regular fixture in the Europa League, and now Champions League, and they continue with their struggle of building a football scene knowing that their true home in Ağdam lies in decay, a forgotten wasteland reduced to rubble and ruin.
The team had suffered great losses during the war; former coach and player Allahverdi Bagirov went on to become a respected army commander, saving many people during the Khojaly Massacre. War reporter Emin Eminbeyli recalled:
“Extraordinary events took place as prisoners were exchanged. Allahverdi Bagirov embraced one of the Armenian prisoners and, looking straight to the camera, said that that man, for many years, had been a teammate of his. At the moment of the exchange, the Armenian soldier told Allahverdi he hoped never to be on opposite fronts with him again.”
Bagirov’s life would be taken by an anti-tank mine on June 12, 1992. He would become a national hero as he also commanded his enemies’ respect, as Eminbeyli recalls. Upon learning about the death of Bagirov, the Armenian commander Vitalik contacted Azerbaijani soldiers on the radio, asking them to confirm the news and cursing them, “How could you not save such a man?” The memory of people associated with the club live on through the football they play today and the players continue to dedicate success to former heroes.
This explains why many cling to football for hope and for 90 minutes of joy, funnelled through escapism. Until 2009, Qarabağ Ağdam had sent an old city bus from Baku to the refugee settlements close to the frontline every week to take supporters to their games. In May 2009, the club returned to the Ağdam region to play three league games in a newly-built stadium funded by the government. Some weeks after Qarabağ returned to the Ağdam region, the team won the Azerbaijani national cup and qualified for the very first edition of the Europa League. They have had a difficult journey but more experience of high-class European football does much to project an image of success for football in Azerbaijan and help the building process.
In anticipation of the Europa League encounter with the Norwegians Rosenborg BK, Qarabağ asked UEFA if they could hold a minutes silence before kick-off. The match against Rosenborg took place on 23 July, 2009, exactly sixteen years after Karabakh-Armenian soldiers captured Ağdam. “No problem” was the response. “Who died?” “Who? Hundreds of people died. It was a war!” UEFA vetoed the tribute.
From 2009 until 2012, Qarabağ Ağdam made three impressive winning runs in Europa League qualification. In 2010/11, the squad defeated Wisła Kraków convincingly and qualified for an enticing clash with Borussia Dortmund. In the overbearing Westfalenstadion, Qarabağ were visibly taken aback by the occasion as their team went down 4-0. To show that ethnic tensions can still flare up, even thousands of miles from the Caucasus, during the match the visitors demanded the removal of an Armenian flag in the vast 30,000 capacity Südtribüne.
Indeed, Azerbaijani’s and Armenians remain bitter rivals to this day, with hatred and violence predominantly fuelled by Nagorno-Karabakh. In late 2013, UEFA took the unprecedented step of ordering a redraw for the U19 European Championships qualifiers after the original pitted the two young republics together. Some critics pointed to UEFA side-stepping a problem but it was a completely understandable decision as Armenia and Azerbaijan have shown that their relationship remains unmanageable, in football terms anyway.
The pairing of Armenia and Azerbaijan for next year’s qualifiers brought back uncomfortable memories of the last time the two sides came out of the hat together for a previous under-19 match in autumn 2006. The crowd that day, buoyed by partisan strands of Armenian-Cypriots in Nicosia, reacted angrily to obscene gestures and provocations made by the young Azeri players, storming the pitch to confront the team in a disturbance that took police over thirty minutes to subdue.
The tensions from a bitter conflict may threaten to resurface occasionally but Azerbaijan enjoys a reasonably healthy sporting culture as it continues to grow as a nation. In football, the Milli, Azerbaijan’s national football team, reached 73rd in FIFA’s official world rankings, their highest to date. They are yet to qualify for a major tournament but there are many who are optimistic regarding their chances for reaching Euro 2016 in France. In a group boasting Italy, Croatia, Norway, Bulgaria and Malta, Azerbaijan retain an outside chance of securing third-place, which would see them qualify for a play-off.
It is almost guaranteed that Italy and Croatia will progress safely through the group but Norway and Bulgaria are not major forces anymore and stranger things have certainly happened. Manager Berti Vogts has continued his steady progression with the national side after facing a wave of criticism during their Euro 2012 qualifying campaign to lead them to their highest ranking and has fostered a fresh wave of belief in a country which has endured an awful lot in its twenty-year existence.
Of course, football is just one of many positive aspects currently circulating around sport in Azerbaijan. In July, it was announced that Baku would host Formula 1’s new lucrative Grand Prix of Europe in 2016 as part of racing’s continued global expansion. Azad Rahimov, the country’s Minister of Sport said, "Baku will be a spectacular addition to the Formula 1 calendar. Our location at the crossroads of Eastern Europe and western Asia is a new frontier for Formula 1 racing. Azerbaijan is a modern European country that has established a reputation as a centre of sporting excellence. The deal to bring Formula 1 to Baku is a very significant new chapter in our ongoing success to attract the world's largest sporting events to our country.”
Qarabağ’s Champions League adventure will come to a thrilling head when they play Red Bull Salzburg, with a fan base desperate for more light to wash away the dark clouds that have hung over football in Azerbaijan since separating from the Soviet Union in 1993. A victory against the Austrian moneybags would go down as one of the all-time shocks in recent European football but anything is possible. Just look at the club.
By Matthew Gault. Follow Matt on Twitter @MattGault11
http://www.thesefootballtimes.net/#!the-tormented-history-of-fk-qarabag/c22eo
THE TORMENTED HISTORY OF QARABAĞ
As Qarabağ FK continue their European journey, Matt Gault analyses the tormented history of the club and football in Azerbaijan since its separation from the Soviet Union in 1993.
Far away from the headline-dominating transfers of Luis Suárez and James Rodríguez to Barcelona and Real Madrid, the Azerbaijani capital of Baku has its own back-page delight to shout about during the summer months of 2014. Qarabağ Ağdam FK managed to see off Maltese champions Valletta 5-0 on aggregate, in the process registering their maiden triumphs in Europe’s elite club competition.
The reigning kings of Azerbaijani football are not entirely alien to European football however - they ventured into the preliminary stages of the Europa League, Intertoto Cup and Cup Winner’s Cup several times during the first twenty years of their existence - but this conquest over their fellow eastern European minnows bears a special resonance for a club who have seen it all and live to tell the story.
That victory, as with pretty much every other moment of triumph for the club, still bears the painful scars of a club in exile. Based in Baku, Qarabağ long to return to Ağdam where they would have the comfort of playing football in their birthplace. Unfortunately, that remains a pipedream for a club who have directly felt the turmoil and dismay of war on their own doorstep.
Set against the backdrop of the Nagorno-Karabakh war in the early 1990s, Qarabağ FK regularly played inside a packed Imaret stadium in Ağdam as they sought to establish themselves in European football. Sadly, it wasn’t to be. In 1993, the Imaret Stadium was occupied and subsequently bombed by forces of the Armenian Republic. There are fairytales aplenty in football but this particular enclave in south-eastern Azerbaijan was to experience only horror and urban decimation as the war between Azerbaijan and Armenia raged.
It always triggers a deep sense of regret while reading of a time when football was caught in the crossfire of war; this time was no different. Between 1992 and 1994 thousands died across the Nagorno-Karabakh region in brutal ethnic battles as the countries separated from the collapse of the Soviet Union began to feel the ripple effect of a broken empire. Ağdam was not spared. The entire population of a once bustling regional province, renowned for its bread museum, fled eastwards and left Ağdam the way it can be seen today; the world’s largest ghost town.
Qarabağ serves not just as a football club. They could easily adopt Barcelona’s motto of Més que un club - More than a club - as they stand gallantly as the descendants of a great tragedy, a mechanism simultaneously symbolising hope and pride. The club are a poignant reminder of how war torments and ravages civilisation, but ceases to kill the spirit.
Succeeding in football is scant consolation for the loss of life, identity and home, but it still stands as an outlet for rebuilding - even if the rebuilding is uniting the following of Qarabağ for the purpose of sport. When Qarabağ turn out in Baku for their home matches, they are carrying with them the spirit and pride of some half a million refugees scattered throughout Azerbaijan as a result of the conflict. Given the minor status of the Azerbaijan Premier League, the Champions League, and European football in general, gives the club, and the cause, a greater focus. They are clearly determined to make the most of the opportunity.
Qarabağ has only recently returned to the summit of Azerbaijani football, claiming their second Premier League title this year after seeing off the challenge of Inter Baku. The Horsemen have the unique distinction of being the only non-Baku club to win the Premier League. Last season’s success was a watershed moment for the club, claiming their first league title since 1993 when the war’s violence reached disastrous proportions.
That league title in 1993 was inevitably overshadowed by news of the devastation transpiring back home in Ağdam, with friends and families of the squad being displaced as the Armenian troops stepped up their occupation. Only two months had passed between the relocation of Qarabağ FK and the destruction of their stadium. The glorious achievement of 2014 won’t be viewed under the lens of war; it was a conquest liberated from that crippling association.
In recent years, Qarabağ have managed to rise above financial crisis to become a dominant force in Azerbaijan’s top tier as well as a regular fixture in the Europa League, and now Champions League, and they continue with their struggle of building a football scene knowing that their true home in Ağdam lies in decay, a forgotten wasteland reduced to rubble and ruin.
The team had suffered great losses during the war; former coach and player Allahverdi Bagirov went on to become a respected army commander, saving many people during the Khojaly Massacre. War reporter Emin Eminbeyli recalled:
“Extraordinary events took place as prisoners were exchanged. Allahverdi Bagirov embraced one of the Armenian prisoners and, looking straight to the camera, said that that man, for many years, had been a teammate of his. At the moment of the exchange, the Armenian soldier told Allahverdi he hoped never to be on opposite fronts with him again.”
Bagirov’s life would be taken by an anti-tank mine on June 12, 1992. He would become a national hero as he also commanded his enemies’ respect, as Eminbeyli recalls. Upon learning about the death of Bagirov, the Armenian commander Vitalik contacted Azerbaijani soldiers on the radio, asking them to confirm the news and cursing them, “How could you not save such a man?” The memory of people associated with the club live on through the football they play today and the players continue to dedicate success to former heroes.
This explains why many cling to football for hope and for 90 minutes of joy, funnelled through escapism. Until 2009, Qarabağ Ağdam had sent an old city bus from Baku to the refugee settlements close to the frontline every week to take supporters to their games. In May 2009, the club returned to the Ağdam region to play three league games in a newly-built stadium funded by the government. Some weeks after Qarabağ returned to the Ağdam region, the team won the Azerbaijani national cup and qualified for the very first edition of the Europa League. They have had a difficult journey but more experience of high-class European football does much to project an image of success for football in Azerbaijan and help the building process.
In anticipation of the Europa League encounter with the Norwegians Rosenborg BK, Qarabağ asked UEFA if they could hold a minutes silence before kick-off. The match against Rosenborg took place on 23 July, 2009, exactly sixteen years after Karabakh-Armenian soldiers captured Ağdam. “No problem” was the response. “Who died?” “Who? Hundreds of people died. It was a war!” UEFA vetoed the tribute.
From 2009 until 2012, Qarabağ Ağdam made three impressive winning runs in Europa League qualification. In 2010/11, the squad defeated Wisła Kraków convincingly and qualified for an enticing clash with Borussia Dortmund. In the overbearing Westfalenstadion, Qarabağ were visibly taken aback by the occasion as their team went down 4-0. To show that ethnic tensions can still flare up, even thousands of miles from the Caucasus, during the match the visitors demanded the removal of an Armenian flag in the vast 30,000 capacity Südtribüne.
Indeed, Azerbaijani’s and Armenians remain bitter rivals to this day, with hatred and violence predominantly fuelled by Nagorno-Karabakh. In late 2013, UEFA took the unprecedented step of ordering a redraw for the U19 European Championships qualifiers after the original pitted the two young republics together. Some critics pointed to UEFA side-stepping a problem but it was a completely understandable decision as Armenia and Azerbaijan have shown that their relationship remains unmanageable, in football terms anyway.
The pairing of Armenia and Azerbaijan for next year’s qualifiers brought back uncomfortable memories of the last time the two sides came out of the hat together for a previous under-19 match in autumn 2006. The crowd that day, buoyed by partisan strands of Armenian-Cypriots in Nicosia, reacted angrily to obscene gestures and provocations made by the young Azeri players, storming the pitch to confront the team in a disturbance that took police over thirty minutes to subdue.
The tensions from a bitter conflict may threaten to resurface occasionally but Azerbaijan enjoys a reasonably healthy sporting culture as it continues to grow as a nation. In football, the Milli, Azerbaijan’s national football team, reached 73rd in FIFA’s official world rankings, their highest to date. They are yet to qualify for a major tournament but there are many who are optimistic regarding their chances for reaching Euro 2016 in France. In a group boasting Italy, Croatia, Norway, Bulgaria and Malta, Azerbaijan retain an outside chance of securing third-place, which would see them qualify for a play-off.
It is almost guaranteed that Italy and Croatia will progress safely through the group but Norway and Bulgaria are not major forces anymore and stranger things have certainly happened. Manager Berti Vogts has continued his steady progression with the national side after facing a wave of criticism during their Euro 2012 qualifying campaign to lead them to their highest ranking and has fostered a fresh wave of belief in a country which has endured an awful lot in its twenty-year existence.
Of course, football is just one of many positive aspects currently circulating around sport in Azerbaijan. In July, it was announced that Baku would host Formula 1’s new lucrative Grand Prix of Europe in 2016 as part of racing’s continued global expansion. Azad Rahimov, the country’s Minister of Sport said, "Baku will be a spectacular addition to the Formula 1 calendar. Our location at the crossroads of Eastern Europe and western Asia is a new frontier for Formula 1 racing. Azerbaijan is a modern European country that has established a reputation as a centre of sporting excellence. The deal to bring Formula 1 to Baku is a very significant new chapter in our ongoing success to attract the world's largest sporting events to our country.”
Qarabağ’s Champions League adventure will come to a thrilling head when they play Red Bull Salzburg, with a fan base desperate for more light to wash away the dark clouds that have hung over football in Azerbaijan since separating from the Soviet Union in 1993. A victory against the Austrian moneybags would go down as one of the all-time shocks in recent European football but anything is possible. Just look at the club.
By Matthew Gault. Follow Matt on Twitter @MattGault11
