Azerbaijan hero thanks his lucky star

Having scored the winning penalty in Azerbaijan's shoot-out success against Ukraine, Rizvan Farzaliyev saluted his goalkeeper, saying Alesio's side had "Lady Luck and Andrey Tveryankin" on their side at the Papp László Arena.

Awful start
The match started disastrously for the UEFA European Futsal Championship Group A winners, as they conceded inside eight seconds, but they twice came from behind to go 3-2 up before Ukraine levelled again. With 12 seconds left, Ukraine also missed a double penalty, and Tveryankin then made two shoot-out saves, to allow Farzaliyev to strike the winner.

Goalkeeper's glory
"When they got the double penalty at the end, I thought: 'This is it: If they score, we go home'," the 30-year-old Farzaliyev told uefa.com. "It's great for us that they didn't and in the penalty shoot-out Lady Luck and Andrey Tveryankin were on our side. He is the best goalkeeper but everyone on our team was the best tonight."

Azeri first
The all-action Farzaliyev, of course, had a starring role of his own. "I scored the first goal and the winning penalty and the victory was ours," he said. "Azerbaijan already made history getting into the top 12 in Europe, but our story goes on. Azerbaijan have never had a result like this."

Lucky city
Coach Alesio was unusually animated in his post-match press conference, thanking the people of Budapest and Hungary for their hospitality and support for his multi-ethnic side, adding: "We're off to Debrecen tomorrow; I can only hope we can be as lucky there as we were in this wonderful city that was so good for us."

Title ambitions
Unconcerned about whether he gets to take on Serbia or Portugal in the last four on Thursday, he said "we just have to focus on beating whoever we get". However, the title is no longer pie in the sky. "We have been here to win from the start," he said. "We have been working hard and I would not like to go home on 29 January, but on 31 January having had the best possible result."

'Crying like kids'
Ukraine coach Gennadiy Lysenchuk said defeat had hit Ukraine hard. "A lot of the players are crying like kids in the dressing room and I understand why," he reported. "But this is a sport; somebody had to lose and today that was Ukraine. Tomorrow we will go back to Ukraine from this good country, Hungary. Life doesn't stop and we will train for the next championship."

Cracking the code
While he signed off with a cheery "see you at the next finals", the 62-year-old, who has led Ukraine's futsal side since its inception in 1994, clearly had some regrets, and felt Azerbaijan were eminently beatable. He warned the coach of the next team to face them: "Do not miss your chances and be very careful from set-pieces; that will be enough to win you the game."