(MENAFN- AzerNews)
Azerbaijani "Araz-Nakhchivan" team will face Northern Ireland
club "Sparta Belfast" in the first test in Group H within the
preliminary round of the UEFA Futsal Champions League,
Azernews reports.
The match will take place in Sweden on August 21 at 18:00 (Baku
time). The game will be managed by a team of judges from
Bulgaria.
The team headed by Vitaly Borisov will face the Estonian
champion "Sillamae Silla" on August 22, and the Swedish
representative "Uddevalla" on August 24. Only the group leaders
will qualify for the main stage.
The UEFA Futsal Champions League is an annual futsal competition
for European club teams organized by UEFA.
It was founded as the UEFA Futsal Cup in 2001 and replaced the
Futsal European Clubs Championship, an unofficial competition held
since 1984.
The final of the first edition was played in a single game in
Lisbon, while the following four editions were decided over two
legs. Since 2006–07, the winner has been decided through a final
four tournament.
In 2018, the tournament was rebranded as UEFA Futsal Champions
League.
The 2024/25 UEFA Futsal Champions League consists of
preliminary, main, and elite rounds played as one-venue
mini-tournaments and a four-team knockout finals at a venue to be
announced.
Notably, futsal is a ball sport played on a hard court, smaller
than a football pitch, and mainly indoors. It has similarities to
five-a-side football.
The game is played between two teams of five players each, one
of whom is the goalkeeper. Unlike some other forms of indoor
football, the game is played on a hard court surface delimited by
lines; walls or boards are not used.
Azerbaijan had never qualified for the FIFA Futsal World Cup
until 2016. However, national futsal players participated in the
last five editions of the European Championship.
Now the futsal team successfully represents Azerbaijan at
multiple international futsal competitions such as the FIFA Futsal
World Cup and the European Championships.
The team is ranked 14th in the world, the highest-ranking team
from Caucasus in the World Rankings.
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Laman Ismayilova is AzerNews' staff journalist, follow her on
Twitter: @lmntypewriterrr
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