Tagizade to miss friendly clash
Wednesday, February 20, 2002
Article summary
Zaur Tagizade will be unavailable for Wednesday's meeting of Azerbaijan and Bulgaria in Sofia.
Article body
Azerbaijan's player of the year, Zaur Tagizade, will be unavailable for Wednesday's friendly between Bulgaria and Azerbaijan in Sofia.
Ruled unavailable
The 22-year-old FC Shafa winger will be missing because of a back injury. He had been expected to recover in time but has now been ruled out. Without him, Azerbaijan lost 3-1 to Ukrainian first division club FC Stal Alchevsk in a recent friendly. After losing Tagizade, Azerbaijan have added add forward Gurban Gurbanov from Russian side FC Voronezh to their squad.
Absence will affect
"Tagizade's absence will of course affect us. This is our best player, and he creates a threat when he is present," said Fuad Musayev, president of the Association of Football Federations of Azerbaijan. Meanwhile, Bulgaria have announced that they will field a team composed only of players from their domestic league for the friendly match.
