"It was not a losing game. Austria was tired. Maybe they played like that because a draw would satisfy them. But they defeated us."
Former football player of the Azerbaijan national team, Afran Ismayilov, who assessed the 0:1 defeat of the Azerbaijan national team against Austria in the qualifying round of EURO-2024, told Idman.biz.
He said that Gianni de Biasi's team could have finished this match in favor of him: "If we had increased the tempo a little, if we had created scoring chances, we could have easily won. Unfortunately, we lost to an opponent from whom we can get points at home. It would be easy to win. At least we could draw. We played 3 days ago, maybe they were tired. De Biasi could have changed the team and introduced the players who played less in the game against Estonia and those who were less tired. In that case, the result would be good. To be honest, I didn't see any unusual performance from the Austrian national team."
In the last minutes of the national match, Toral Bayramov was close to restoring the status quo, but his shot was not well received. Ismayilov attributed this to bad luck: "Toral Bayramov played one of the best games. He joined the attack very well. Their transmissions were not bad either. He was one of the most active. He also scored a good shot in the episode in the last minutes. This is football, no luck. The ball hit the post. It was necessary to finish the game by that episode. It was necessary to increase the pace and take advantage of the chances."
It should be noted that Marcel Sabitzer scored the only goal of Azerbaijan in the Austria game from a penalty in the 48th minute of the match. This victory took our opponent to the final stage of EURO-2024.
Emin Aga
Idman.biz
