.png)
2 hours ago
1
Remember the summer of 2008? That was when Pep Guardiola was appointed as first-team coach at Barcelona, Jürgen Klopp arrived at Borussia Dortmund and Chelsea gambled on a certain Luiz Felipe Scolari. Since then the west London club have had 12 different permanent managers. Qarabag, who Liverpool play in the Champions League on Wednesday, have had one: Gurban Gurbanov, also known as the Azeri Sir Alex Ferguson.
Gurbanov has become one of the longest serving elite coaches in the world and he has built a remarkable empire, turning the club into a force to be reckoned with in European competitions.
This season is destined to be their best. As Qarabag visit Anfield on the last matchday of the league phase of the Champions League, they have a very good chance of qualifying for the next phase. They are 18th on 10 points, one ahead of European powerhouses such as Marseille, Bayer Leverkusen and PSV Eindhoven. Even a defeat may be enough to stay in the playoff places.
The game on Wednesday will be Qarabag’s 204th in Europe and Gurbanov has been in charge of 190 of them. That is mainly due to the fact that before his arrival they were a rather modest club, even by Azeri standards. In fact, his predecessor, Rasim Kara, left a few days before the start of the 2008-09 season after receiving a better offer from Khazar Lankaran, who were considered to be a much stronger side.
Gurbanov was earmarked as an urgent replacement, but expectations were low. “He was a young coach, and local coaches didn’t get a lot of credit those days, anyway. He started from scratch and wasn’t supposed to survive in the job,” Maksim Medvedev, who played for Qarabag between 2006 and 2024, says.
“But we soon realised that he is a superb coach. We won the cup in his first season, and then managed to beat Rosenborg in the Europa League qualifying round. That’s when the whole adventure started. Gurbanov got all the credit in the world from the management and was able to work without interventions from above. He built the team gradually,” Medvedev adds.
Qarabag, however, had to wait until 2014 to win Gurbanov’s first Azeri championship title – and only the second in their history. After that, they became a machine, and have won the league 10 out of the past 11 seasons. In the meantime they have been making progress in Europe too. They have featured regularly in the Europa League group stage and qualified for the Champions League proper in 2017.
Qarabag’s success is very important for Azerbaijan from the political point of view too. The club was originally based in Aghdam, a town from the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh that was completely destroyed during the war against Armenia. It returned to Azerbaijani control in 2020 as part of the agreement that ended the conflict, and it is now being rebuilt.
The Qafqazinfo.az journalist Elsevar Mammadov explains: “According to the late Qarabag president Abdolbari Gozal, Azerbaijan president Heydar Aliyev asked him to take over in the beginning of the century in order to save the club. Gozal promised him to make significant investments. He was in charge of Azersun Holding, a very big company that produces most of the food in the country.”
Qarabag had the money but, unlike many of their competitors, they did not invest in big foreign names. Gurbanov’s strategy has been to build a collective that is bigger than the sum of its parts.
“We never signed top stars,” Medvedev says. “For Gurbanov, all the players are equal. He explains his demands to new arrivals, and only those who accept them can be part of the squad. During our time together, he never had major conflicts with anyone. The coach is strict and puts emphasis on discipline, but he is very fair. He would always defend his players, help them and give them professional and personal advice. Everyone likes and respects him.”
Record.az’s editor-in-chief, Kenan Mastaliyev, adds: “Qarabag can afford to make expensive signings, but Gurbanov would never destroy the balance he has in the squad. For him, only the team matters. He is patient and believes in his philosophy. He picks players who fit the system, and not vice versa.”
Asked to describe Gurbanov’s philosophy Medvedev says it is based on possession and being proactive. “Under Gurbanov, we aspired to control the game and get as many chances to score as possible,” he says. “We were never afraid to make mistakes. We won’t change our style even against the strongest opponents. That was especially true after we won 3-0 at Legia Warsaw in 2020. Ever since, we knew that were we capable of beating anyone and played even more attacking football.”
The results back that approach, with Qarabag having been involved in several high-scoring affairs in Europe. Two years ago, they won 4-2 at Braga in the Europa League and then nearly overcame Xabi Alonso’s Leverkusen in the last 16, drawing 2-2 at home before dramatically losing 3-2 in Germany. Last season they thrashed Ludogorets 7-2 in Bulgaria.
This campaign, Qarabag qualified for the league stage by beating Ferencvaros 5-4 on aggregate. They came from 2-0 down to beat Benfica 3-2 in Lisbon then won 2-0 against Copenhagen and drew 2-2 in an entertaining game against Chelsea. Last week, they won 3-2 against Eintracht Frankfurt.
Before Gurbanov, Azerbaijan’s most important person in football history was Tofiq Bahramov, the linesman who gave Geoff Hurst’s goal in the 1966 World Cup final – they named their national stadium after him – but now the Qarabag coach is way ahead.
“Gurbanov is a legend in Azerbaijan. He achieved things that seemed impossible,” Mammadov says, while Medvedev adds: “He is our own Azeri Alex Ferguson. He is going to stay at Qarabag as long as he wants, and then he will retire.”
For now though, he is targeting a famous win at Anfield to add to his long list of achievements.
