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Published: November 26th 2008
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International football for a couple of quid. Well, Russ couldn't resist the lure of the game, even if Azerbaijan against Albania doesn't exactly sound like the best game you could ever see!
I met up with an Azeri friend, Moruq, close to the Tofik Bakhramov stadium, home to the national team and several club sides. The stadium is named after a very famous man in English football history. If you've never heard of Tofik Bakhramov, take a trip over to
Wikipedia for the full story. He was the "Russian linesman" who controversially awarded England's third goal in the 1966 World Cup final. He wasn't Russian at all though, he was from Azerbaijan!
The stadium isn't too grand really and it was probably about a quarter full. Even so, it was good to be in a different stadium and watching some live sport. The crowd were quite noisy but only had one chant throughout the whole evening. "AZ-ER-BY-JAN" was ringing in my ears for days afterwards. It was a cold evening too and I'm pleased I wore my gloves, even if Moruq did tell me that only women wear gloves here. Looking around I only saw ONE woman and I
didn't see a single other man wearing gloves. Still, MY hands were warm!!!!!
As for the game, well, the first half was very entertaining. Azerbaijan scored a bizarre goal after just 3 minutes and I was wondering if I was a lucky charm! A fierce Albanian shot ricocheted off one of their own players and flew high into the air towards the other end of the pitch.
Branimir Subasic, who currently plays for Red Star Belgrade and is Serbian by birth, was fastest to the ball and found himself with only the goalkeeper to beat. He duly scored and the crowd went wild(ish)!
Sadly the lead was short lived. Within ten minutes Albania had drawn level, had several players yellow carded and should have been in the lead. Only comical shooting at both ends prevented further goals being scored. At times it was horrifically bad!! On the stroke of half time Albania were reduced to ten men when Elvin Beqiri was shown a red card. Nobody had the faintest idea why, and it was funny to see the electronic scoreboard operator running through recent footage on the TV screen to find out what had happened. It seems he was
sent off for something he said to the ref.
The second half was about as forgettable as a wet weekend in Cleethorpes! I remember almost nothing about it and I honestly believe that better football will be played at Withdean Stadium when I see Brighton take on Stockport at the beginning of May!!!
It was a good night though, and I will definitely be going all out to support Azerbaijan in their World Cup campaign next year when both Germany and Wales come to town.
AZ-ER-BY-JAN!!!!!
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