2018 Stats of the SC Gabala: 12 key facts
1. 5th Achievement in a Row
The Gabala senior football team, coached by Roman Grigorchuk over the half of the year, finished the last season second on the domestic league table. This was the second silver medal of the red-black squad on the trot. And it appears to be the fifth achievement in a row of the last five seasons after three bronze and two silver medals.
2. Second Football Holiday in Gabala
Gabala’s 3rd Final
Gabala City Stadium hosted the Azerbaijan Cup final for the second in its record path. Going to the third cup final experience, Gabala lost the home match to Keshla repeating the same results of the seasons 2013/14 and 2016/17.
3. Score King
Bagaliy Dabo finished the season 2017/18 as the top scorer of the Azerbaijan Premier League with thirteen goals that is the same result by Filip Ozobic as one of others with the same title one year before.
4. Four Triumphs by Gabala Football Academy
The Gabala Football Academy is keeping up the lead in the AFFA Youth League for the some last years. Four age groups of the academy finished the season on top. U19, U17, U16 and U13 gained gold medals as U15 and U10 ended with silver medals and U11 hit bronze medals.
Gabala took the second place also in the Girls’ Premier League as the reserve league also ended as runners-up.
5. Fifth Experience in Europe
Gabala, ending second of the last season’s domestic league, earned the fifth tally to the UEFA Europe League ever. But the team left the continental contest after the 1st Qualifying Round matches.
6. Gabala Made Their History in Moldova
U19, finishing the last season on top, struck a tally to the UEFA Youth League for their second experience. They became also the first side of Azerbaijan taking a round of the continental tournament. Emin Imamaliyev’s team knocked out Sherif from Moldova. Then the red-black squad lost to Hertha from Germany and left the contest.
7. First Goal in UEFA Nations League
Gabala’s seven footballers have been called for the Azerbaijan national team. Javid Huseynov, Urfan Abbasov, Ruslan Gurbanov, Tamkin Khalilzadeh, Rauf Aliyev, Ilgar Gurbanov and Asif Mammadov played for the provisional squad. The latter took on his debut for the national team while Khalilzadeh, Aliyev and Gurbanov played for the squad for their first experience as Gabala footballers. Urfan and Tamkin have opened their scoring for the national side this year. Khalilzadeh scored against Malta registered as the first goal by Azerbaijan in the UEFA Nations League.
8. Silverware in World Cup
Gabala’s two challengers came on the World Judo Cup 2018 in Azerbaijan. Ushangi Kokauri (+100 kg) finished with a silver medal as Karamat Huseynov (60 kg) ended 5th.
9. Double Achievements by Gabala Boxers
Gabala won fifteen medals together from two Azerbaijan National Boxing Championships held both in January and December, 2018. The red-black team first took eight medals before gaining seven. The result reached the club’s team to the third title of best side after seven gold, five silver and three bronze medals.
10. First by a Legend
Gabala’s Rafael Aghayev, one of the world karate legends, added one more achievement to his reputation won the Premier League medal for the first. The 5-time world cup winner took tournaments in Dubai (UAA) and Rabat (Morocco) before losing only final in Paris (France) and Berlin (Germany), and gained bronze in Rotterdam (Netherlands). Then he sealed in the top place in general results just before the last tournament in Tokyo (Japan). The Gabala hero hit both eleventh European champion title and first world cup silverware in 2018.
11. Olympic Bronze
Gabala’s taekwondo challenger Javad Aghayev, 63 kg, took a bronze medal of the Buenos Aires 2018 Youth Olympics. Youth World Cup 2018 champion.
12. Two World Belts
Bakhtiyar Abbasov, 84 kg, won the MMA GEFC Global World Cup in Baku dedicated to late national leader Heydar Aliyev’s 95th jubilee.
And Parviz Abdullayev took ACB KB 15 World Belt in his 77 kg in Moscow, Russia.
Nariman Abbasov (77 kg) and Huseyn Aliyev (70 kg) struck the International WMMAF Championship in Odessa, Ukraine.
