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Laman Ismayilova

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The draw for the 2024-2025 UEFA Futsal Champions League will be held on July 4, Azernews reports.

The opponents of Azerbaijan's champion-Araz-Nakhchivan team will be announced at the drawing ceremony to be held in Nyon, Switzerland.

Since the representative of Nakhchivan is on the 25th place of the rating table, he will start the new season from the initial stage.

Based on the result of the draw, 32 teams will be divided into 8 groups with 4 clubs each. Only the group winners (total of 8 clubs) will qualify for the main stage and compete in the B road.

The teams have already been divided into baskets. Araz-Nakhchivan team will participate in the draw from the 5th basket.

The UEFA Futsal Champions League is an annual futsal competition for European club teams organized by UEFA.

It was founded as the UEFA Futsal Cup in 2001 and replaced the Futsal European Clubs Championship, an unofficial competition held since 1984.

The final of the first edition was played in a single game in Lisbon, while the following four editions were decided over two legs. Since 2006–07, the winner is decided through a final four tournament.

In 2018, the tournament was rebranded as UEFA Futsal Champions League.

The 2024/25 UEFA Futsal Champions League consists of preliminary, main and elite rounds played as one-venue mini-tournaments, and a four-team knockout finals at a venue to be announced.

Notably, futsal is a ball sport played on a hard court, smaller than a football pitch, and mainly indoors. It has similarities to five-a-side football.

The game is played between two teams of five players each, one of whom is the goalkeeper. Unlike some other forms of indoor football, the game is played on a hard court surface delimited by lines; walls or boards are not used.

Azerbaijan had never qualified for the FIFA Futsal World Cup until 2016. However, national futsal players participated in the last five editions of the European Championship.

Now futsal team successfully represents Azerbaijan at multiple international futsal competitions such as the FIFA Futsal World Cup and the European Championships.

The team is ranked 14th in the world, the highest-ranking team from Caucasus in the World Rankings.

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Laman Ismayilova is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @lmntypewriterrr

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