Azerbaijan — Iceland: 0-5 — This really hurts Another defeat, another thrashing

From an excess of emotion, you don’t even know where to start… You all saw it. You all saw it. The first game of the 2026 World Cup qualifying campaign turned into yet another, and sadly now familiar, humiliation for Azerbaijani football.

Representatives of the Land of Fire were powerless against the fire of the Land of Volcanoes and conceded a staggering five unanswered goals to the Icelandic players! Five, Carl! From a country that has no regular army but does have a national football team that, last night, simply tore our team apart.

And yet, it didn’t start that badly. After 45 minutes, the scoreboard showed dull zeros, leaving both teams in shock. The Icelanders, because they couldn’t score, and ours—because they were surprised they hadn’t conceded yet. And only in added time did we get the “goal before the break.” From a corner in the second minute of stoppage time, Iceland’s Pálsson found the back of Shahruddin Mahammadaliyev’s net… and, as it turned out, that was just the beginning of the end.

The second half began, and the Azerbaijani team conceded another goal. And then another, and another. And towards the end, Hlynsson scored an almost mocking goal. Taking a free kick, he seemed more intent on crossing than shooting, but the ball went through the wall and rolled into the net…

And then… then the Icelanders simply showed us mercy. With almost 20 minutes left to play, and given the abysmal performance of the Azerbaijani team, they could easily have scored at least two more goals. Meanwhile, our team managed just two shots on the hosts’ goal throughout the entire match—and not a single one even hit the target…

Notably, even AFFA’s Secretary General, Jahangir Farajullayev, was shocked by the performance (or rather, the lack thereof) of our team, stating that the national players do not deserve such management or such results.

“We don’t need such cowardly football,” Farajullayev declared, as if he had nothing to do with yet another fiasco of the national team.

Meanwhile, it was AFFA that initiated the invitation of the very architect of this anti-football—the Portuguese coach Fernando Santos—under whose guidance our team played 11 matches without a single victory! Two draws and nine defeats—what else is needed to boldly show the Portuguese coach the door?! Who and how must defeat the Azerbaijani team for AFFA, which spared no expense on the contract of the Portuguese veteran, not to spare funds to terminate this contract and send the 70-year-old coach into a well-deserved retirement?! After all, he has no intention of leaving on his own, as he stated outright in the post-match press conference.

“I am not going to resign; I have a valid contract. Why should I resign?” he coolly responded to Azerbaijani journalists, who were emotionally urging him to step down after such a disgracefully humiliating defeat.

So, apparently, unless AFFA’s management makes the proper decision—namely, sending Santos back to Portugal—we will have to endure him until June 2027, when his contract, signed at AFFA’s initiative and even extended after our team’s catastrophic performance in the Nations League, expires. And ahead lie Azerbaijan’s matches against Ukraine and France…

By Vugar Vugarli, exclusively for Caliber.Az