AzB.az presents an exclusive interview with Turgay Zeytingöz, Sports Director of the Azerbaijan Basketball Federation (ABF).
– The new season is about to begin. What can basketball fans expect this season?
– First of all, I wish everyone a successful season. Hopefully, it will be a healthy and successful season for everyone. What particularly excites us this season is that, alongside the Azerbaijan League, four of our teams will compete in European competitions for the first time in history. Having four teams participate in European competitions will naturally improve the quality of the league. At the same time, it will create opportunities for the other teams as well. As a result, the teams competing in Europe may be more tired when they play some league matches due to their European fixtures. I think the Azerbaijan League will be both high-quality and full of surprises. I hope we have a great season. Hopefully, our teams achieve good results in Europe and we see a season that further improves the quality of the Azerbaijan League.
– The ABL and ABL II leagues are about to start. Will this format continue?
– As you know, each of the eight teams in the Azerbaijan League now has its own sponsor. Therefore, for the first time, eight teams that are not dependent on the federation will compete this season. This number could increase next year. However, we are looking at several factors for that. One of them is the number of players. We always need to pay attention to the number of players available to play in the league in Azerbaijan. When we first arrived, this number was around 60. Now there are 100 players who can play in the Azerbaijan League. That is why we created two leagues.
Our first goal is to increase the number of teams in the second division. An increase in the number of teams in the first division also means an improvement in quality. As the number of sponsors increases and our players reach a higher level in the next few years, the number of teams in the first division can naturally increase as well. The ideal number would be 12 or 14 teams. Hopefully, we can reach that number in the Azerbaijan League as soon as possible.
– NTD will serve as the base for the Azerbaijan U20 national team. How would you comment on this decision?
– This is a decision made by the NTD management and Tahir [Ismayilov], and we supported it. Taking into account NTD’s financial structure this season, as well as the situation of the Azerbaijan U20 national team ahead of next year’s European Championship, NTD made this decision. Personally, I am very pleased with it.
Of course, this will not be the entire U20 national team. Players such as Ismayil, Emmanuel and Huseyn Mammadov are playing for other teams. However, the remaining players will spend this season at NTD. At the same time, they will also compete in the second division. In the second division, they will compete under the name “Quba”, rather than NTD. This will allow both these players and the basketball players competing in the first division to get additional playing time.
– Does this mean we will see a generational change and the emergence of younger players in the senior national team in the near future?
– The Azerbaijan national team’s next official game is in July 2027. So we have enough time until then. We will monitor the players until that point and make decisions based on the options available to us at that time.
However, we can gradually see that some of our young players are approaching the level required to play for the senior national team. This year, at the U20 European Championship, players such as Ismayil and Emmanuel, whom I mentioned earlier, performed really well. Hopefully, they will continue their development. Murad Babayev also had a very good European Championship. Hopefully, if he continues to develop, we would very much like to see more young players become part of the national team and help the more experienced basketball players there.
