Gabala’s U19 coach Emin Imamaliyev talks to media reporters right after the 1:1 draw against Sherif (Moldova) in the first tie of the UEFA Youth League’s first stage. He says:

“We knew the match would be a tough mission as the opponents are a strong side. We made a deep analyze about Sherif. A little carelessness led to an opener by the opponents. But the goal didn’t made us feel down and we pushed harder until the end. Gabala will try and take a better result from in return match.

As we wre unable to cut through the defence with our middle force, we tried to this with the flank players. In the analyze, I saw tall opponent midfielders make mistakes in flank attacks and we set our game on this point of view.

I don’t think we played in a down display in the first half and we conceded the goal only on our mistake.

After the restart, we pushed harder and leveled. We could have scored even one more but our footballers failed into a poor practice. I’m satisfied by my team’s performance in both periods and now we know the opponents better ahead of the return match. We need only a victory in the away game and Gabala has potential footballers for this. The return match will be a different show and I’m convinced we will take the round”.