On July 11, the games of the 1st qualifying round of the European League will start. "Zira", our only representative in the tournament, will face Moldova's "Sherif" club. Let's get to know our team's opponent.

"Sherif" (Tiraspol) was founded on April 4, 1997. The first name of the collective was "Tiras Tiraspol". In the history of the club, the name of Azerbaijani coach Ahmet Alasgarov should be highlighted. Thus, the specialist took the team to the main league of Moldova for the first time. The collective, which finished the last season in the 2nd place, became the national champion 21 times in total. In addition, the club has won the Moldovan Cup 12 times and won the Super Cup 7 times. In 2003 and 2009, "Sherif" won gold medals in the Commonwealth Cup.

Looking at the performances of the Tiraspol representative in the European Cup, it should be noted that they played 1 time in the Champions League and 5 times in the group stage of the Europa League. Currently, "Sherif" is headed by 47-year-old Yuri Hura. The president of the club is Viktor Gushan. The Yellow-Blacks play their home games at the Sherif Arena, which has a capacity of 12,746 fans.

According to "Transfermarkt", the total value of the team, which consists of legionnaires, is 10.5 million euros. The most expensive members of the Moldovan team are Christian Tovar and Cedric Badolo (both 750 thousand euros).

For the sake of interest, let's note that "Sherif" was a rival to "Karabagh" 3 times before. In the 2017/18 season, the representative of Agdam beat the representative of Tiraspol in the third qualifying round of the Champions League based on the results of two matches - 0:0, 2:1.

The teams met for the second time in the playoffs of the Europa League in the 2018/19 season. According to the results of two games, the representative of Aghdam defeated his opponent with a score of 3:1.

"Köhlen Atlar" met the mentioned club for the last time in the second qualifying round of the Champions League. Due to COVID-19, the fate of the team was decided in one game, and in that match, the team led by Gurban Gurbanov managed to win the stage (2:1).

"Zira" will play the first game against "Sherif" away on July 11. The return match will take place in Baku a week later.