Azerbaijan Women

There is no derby to speak of here, no rival whose name sharpens the fixture list — this is a team that has spent most of its life outside the rooms where such things get decided, watching World Cup and Olympic qualification pass it by without a single appearance to show for either.

The qualifying record shows sixteen matches in FIFA World Cup qualification and sixteen more toward the UEFA Women's Championship, each block yielding the same line of three wins, two draws and eleven losses. Against that backdrop, the 2025 Bangladesh Tri-Nations Cup counts as a trophy in the cabinet — won in Dhaka on the back of a 2–0 win over Malaysia and a 2–1 win over the hosts, a friendly tournament rather than anything sanctioned by UEFA or FIFA, but silverware nonetheless for a side that has so little of it.

Firangiz Teymurova has carried the midfield through recent years, while Cosquna Aliyeva took her scoring instincts abroad in 2026, moving to Gaziantep after building a reputation as the team's forward threat. Beneath them, a younger generation is already filing through: Khanım Asadova, born in 2008, represents the age bracket the federation is now leaning on to close the gap that opened up after 2009.

The side plays its home fixtures at the Liv Bona Dea Arena in Baku, known locally as the Dalgha Arena, in front of a ground that holds just over 9,000. It carries the nickname Odlar Yurdu, the Land of Fire, a name that reaches back further than the team itself. That history began on 18 November 2006, away in Mogoșoaia, where Svetlana Milyukhina scored the goal that opened the team's record in a 4–1 defeat to Romania.