Azernews.Az

Laman Ismayilova

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The Araz-Nakhchivan futsal club will play its first match today in the Round of 16 of the UEFA Champions League, Azernews reports.

The Azerbaijani champions, who successfully advanced through the first two rounds, will face Portugal's Benfica for the first time at this stage. The match will be held at the Baku Sports Palace and is scheduled to kick off at 20:00.

The team will start the game with some absences. Giovanni Valero, Carlos Bertuola, and Alex Sanderson Teixeira will be unavailable due to suspension. In their place, Kenan Manafov, Farid Abbasov, and Huseyn Abdulov have been included in the match squad.

The return leg between the two teams is scheduled for December 5. The winner of the tie will face the victor of the AEK (Greece) – Sporting (Portugal) matchup in the quarterfinals.

Araz-Nakhchivan's squad for the first match includes goalkeepers Emin Kurdov, Rovshan Huseynli, and Huseyn Abdulov, as well as players Farid Abbasov, Adalet Alakbarov, Ulvi Aliyev, Mirza Amirov, Filipino, Jin Marcos Perruzo, Gudrat Gasimzade, Luicci Longo, Kenan Manafov, Yago Enrique, and Alleks Rezende. The team is coached by Yevgeni Kuksevich.

The 2025–26 UEFA Futsal Champions League marks the 40th edition of Europe's top club futsal competition and the 25th edition under UEFA's organization. Palma Futsal are the defending champions.

A total of 56 teams from 52 of UEFA's 55 member associations will take part in the 2025–26 UEFA Futsal Champions League.

The number of teams representing each association was determined based on the UEFA futsal national team coefficient rankings.