An Azerbaijani football club that represents the regained region of Karabakh is making a Cinderella run in one of Europe’s top annual tournaments. 

Qarabag FK, which once played home games in the city of Aghdam, is the first club from a South Caucasus state to ever make it to the round of 16 in a major European competition, in this case UEFA’s Europa League, which is second in prestige among European tournaments to the ChampionsLeague. 

In the most recent in a string of stunning accomplishments, Qarabag earned a 2-2 draw on March 7 in Baku. The team’s opponent was perhaps the strongest European club this season, Bayer Leverkusen, which entered the match with a 34-game unbeaten streak while playing in the German Bundesliga. The two clubs will face off again in Germany on March 15 to determine which team advances to the quarterfinal round.

Just getting to the round of 16 took a miracle for Qarabag. After taking a 4-2 lead in goals in the first match of a qualifying series against the Portuguese club Braga FC, Qarabag had to play a man down after a red card in the 57th minute of the second leg. Over the remainder of the second half, Qarabag gave up two goals, forcing extra time. Qarabag then gave up a penalty shot at the 115-minute mark, seemingly killing their hopes of advancing. But the team came up with a goal in the 122nd minute to send them through to a meeting with Leverkusen.

This is not the first time Qarabag has made a mark on the European stage. In 2017, the club became the first Azerbaijani club to make the group stage of the Champions League. 

Qarabag is no ordinary football team for Azerbaijanis. It became an itinerant club after Armenian forces took control of Karabakh in the early 1990s and could not entertain the idea of playing on its home turf in Aghdam again until Azerbaijan reconquered most of the territory in 2020, then pushed the remaining Armenian residents out in late 2023. Reconstruction of the club’s stadium in Aghdam began shortly after Azerbaijani forces took full control of Karabakh. 

During the late 1990s and early 2000s, Qarabag grew into a symbol of resilience for Azerbaijanis and the team's identity is still closely intertwined today with the conflict. The club’s former coach and player, Allahverdi Bagirov, became a well-known military commander during the first Karabakh war, and was named a national hero in 1992 after stepping on an anti-tank mine. Upon learning about his death in action, an Armenian commander – and former Qarabag player – reportedly contacted Azerbaijani soldiers via radio to verify the news and, upon confirmation, supposedly cursed them: “How could you not save such a man?”

During the recent match against Braga in Baku, a display in the stands depicted Bagirov and the team’s current coach, Gurban Gurbanov, shaking hands, with a caption underneath the image reading: “Our spirit is glad.”

Azerbaijan’s First Fan, President Ilham Aliyev, has not wasted opportunities to use Qarabag’s success to pump up national pride. Last December, Aliyev attended the Azerbaijani Premier League final between Qarabag and the army club Moik, held in a refurbished stadium in Karabakh’s capital, Khankendi, formerly known as Stepanakert. In a speech before the start of the match, Aliyev framed football as a reflection of military success.

“Regardless of the result of today’s game, the winner is obvious. The winners are the people of Azerbaijan, the state of Azerbaijan,” Aliyev said. “The unity of Karabakh, the army and the people is the primary source of our victory. … Some people claimed that ‘Karabakh is Armenia, full stop’ in this stadium four years ago. We have proved to them that Karabakh is Azerbaijan!” 

In 2021, when Qarabag qualified for a third-tier European tournament known as the UEFA Conference League, Aliyev met with the team, telling the players: “It is no secret that the name of the Qarabag football club puts additional responsibility on you. You glorified the name of Karabakh both during the occupation and after the historic victory in the Second Karabakh War.”

“Every victory and every historic step of the Qarabag football club pleases every citizen of Azerbaijan,” Aliyev added.

Gurbanov, Qarabag’s coach, is on record as saying his players are motivated by the country’s victory on the battlefield. “Before every game, I explain to my players what name we represent. How many martyrs were given for this name, how many lives were sacrificed,” he said during a recent screening of a documentary about the team, produced by the Baku MediaCenter, whose head is the president’s daughter Arzu Aliyeva.