Rajab Farajzada: Azerbaijan has 90% chance of winning minifootball EURO

Azerbaijan's national minifootball team is the clear favorite at the European Championship in Slovakia.

Rajab Farajzada, head coach of Azerbaijan's U23 minifootball team, told Report.

The specialist assessed the team's performance in the group stage.

"Azerbaijan's national team is the clear favorite of the European Championship. If nothing unusual happens in today's match against Kazakhstan, the team will win. They are proving their strength with their performance. The team played particularly well in the group-stage match against Italy and did not allow the opponent to play. The match against Austria was a bit difficult. Fans may not know this, but the turf was very poor in the first match. Since the pitch was new, it slowed the ball down and prevented a dynamic game. The ball seemed to get stuck in the grass. Since most of the players in the squad are young and agile, this factor caused them difficulties. However, they performed well in the other matches. Both on paper and in terms of the game they have shown, it is clear that the players are very strong. Compared with the previous World Championship, there is a big difference in terms of progress," he said.

The specialist did not rule out surprises in minifootball.

"It is not only the game that matters here, but also luck and the players' motivation. However, if the players show their game and everything continues normally, there is a 90% chance of winning the title. Football is a sport where surprises can happen at any moment. Sometimes a team is completely dominant and creates many scoring chances, but suddenly concedes one goal and then, no matter how hard it tries, it becomes impossible to change the result. If such force majeure situations do not occur, Azerbaijan's national team is clearly superior both in terms of its level of play and other indicators," he said.

Azerbaijan will face Kazakhstan today at 00:00 in the last 16 of the European Championship. The team coached by Elshad Guliyev finished top of Group F after beating Austria 1-0, Italy 3-2 and France 3-2.