RSC Anderlecht vs Gabala (or Qäbälä as the club is also known) is the maiden matchup between Belgium’s most historic side, and the competition’s third youngest club—only FC Krasnodar and FC Astana were founded more recently (read Qäbälä’s Europa League Preview here).
But, for Anderlecht, this is not the first encounter with a club from Azerbaijan. Last season, Anderlecht overcame a 1-0 deficit on match day six against Qarabag to seal a place in the round of 32.
Qäbälä meanwhile will have to travel 3,500 kilometres from Azerbaijan to Brussels to kick off their second consecutive Europa League group stage campaign. Last season, they were drawn into a group with Borussia Dortmund Krasnodar, and PAOK, and finished the group in fourth and last place.
On top of that, the club made negative headlines when Borussia Dortmund’s Armenian midfielder, Henrikh Mkhitaryan, was unable to travel to Azerbaijan, because of the on-going conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia over the Nagorno-Karabakh territory.
Hence, Qäbälä’s goal for this season is to keep the headlines on the pitch. The Ukrainian coach, Roman Hrygorchuk, hopes that his side will draw from last season’s Europa League experience and manage a better finish in Group C of the Europa League this season.
The Ukrainian also has previous Europa League experience with Chornomorets Odessa, and is known to favour a 4-2-3-1 formation. The American, Theo Weeks, was supposed to be one of the key figures in the line up, but the playmaker will miss the opening match against Anderlecht due to a red card that he received against NK Maribor in the Europa League playoffs.
The club also lost last season’s top scorer, the Ukrainian midfielder, Oliksiy Gai, who signed for Krasnodar. Qäbälä did, however, manage to sign Ruslan Gurbanov, who was the top scorer with 13 goals at his former club, Neftchi Baku, last season, and he should feature up front against Anderlecht on Thursday.
Despite a potentially formidable new striker up front, Qäbälä will remain outsiders in Belgium on Thursday and, at best, could hope to snatch a draw against a Belgium team that, at this point, might just be a bit to strong for the Azeri.
Possible Line-ups
RSC Anderlecht:
Formation: 4-2-3-1
Roef – Acheampong, Nuytinck, Kara, Spajic – Dendoncker, Tielemans – Hanni, Stanciu, Chipciu – Teodorczyk
Manager: René Weiler
Qäbälä:
Formation: 4-2-3-1
Bezotosny – Ricardinho, Rafael, Stankovic, Mirzabekov – Kvekveskiri, Vernydub – Dabo, Ozobić, Zenjov – Gorbanov
Manager: Roman Hrygorchuk
COMMENTS