The first leg match against Neftchi PFK will be held on July 7 at Dinamo Arena in Tbilisi, and the return match will be hosted by Baxel Arena on July 14.
The famous representative of Azerbaijani football was founded in 1937 and played under the name of Neftyanik until 1968. Since then he has been competing under the name of Neftchi. Home matches are played at the Baxel Arena, which has a capacity of 11,000 spectators. The colors of the team are white and black.
The debut of Baku in the Premier League of the Soviet Union took place in 1949. The main achievement of that period is the bronze medals of the USSR Championship won in 1966. As for the championship of Azerbaijan - here Neftchi is uncompetitive with titles: 9-time champion, 7-time cup winner and twice-won Super Cup. Neftchi made it to the third round of the Intertoto Tournament in 2008, where he lost with Romanian club Vaslui. Two years earlier, Neftchi had won the Commonwealth Cup with the defeat of Zalgiris Kaunas, and a year earlier he had lost the final of the same tournament to Lokomotiv Moscow.
Neftchi is the first Azerbaijani club to play in the group stage of the Europa League. In the playoffs in 2012, the Azerbaijanis defeated the Cypriot Apoel and advanced to the group stage. Neftchi's rivalry there was between Kazan Rubin, Milan Inter and the Belgrade Partisan. Last year's Europa League was started by Baku with the defeat of the Macedonian team, and in the second qualifying round they lost to Galatasaray.
The championship of Azerbaijan, which ended in May, turned out to be really tense. Neftchi can be said to have won the title in the last minute of the match. The long-awaited 7-year rule of Karabakh ended with Ahmedov's goal on the 90th minute of the last round of the match between these teams.
Samir Abasov, 43, a local football specialist, has been the head coach of Neftchi since November 2020. Abasov's team held a training camp in Slovenia and also played three sparring matches. Neftchi played 1-1 with Olympia Ljubljana, lost 1-2 to Domzale and beat Spartak Moscow 2-1.