Shuvalan FK

Shuvalan FK (Azerbaijani: Suvəlan Futbol Klubu, pronounced [ʃyvalan]) is an Azerbaijani football club based in Suvəlan, Baku.

The club was renamed four times in its short history becoming Olimpik Baku, Olimpik-Shuvalan Baku, AZAL and Shuvalan. UEFA is still recognizing the club as Olimpik-Shuvalan at European competitions.

The club is also a member of the European Club Association, an organization that replaced the previous G-14 which consists of major football clubs in Europe.

History

Early years (1996–2006)

The club were established in 1996 as a futsal club under the name of AMMK. It participated in national futsal league from the season 1996–97 till 2003–04. AMMK also represented Azerbaijan in UEFA Futsal Cup 2003/04 season.

AMMK became professional football team in 2004 and joined the Azerbaijan First Division. The first Azerbaijan Premier League season was not much successful for Olimpik Baku. Croatian manager Stjepan Cordas worked just for a couple of month and was sacked after poor results. His place was taken by Serbian Petar Kurcubic, but he was also unable to achieve good results, and Olimpik Baku finished 12th. At that time, Olimpik was called 'The Club from Balkans', as there were a lot of players from Balkan countries such as Marko Mitrovic, Srdjan Baljak, Raso Babic, Sasa Kovacevic, Tomislav Visevic and others.

Abdullayev years (2006–2009)

In June 2006, Asgar Abdullayev was appointed as a new head coach of Olimpik. He still remains as the most successful manager in clubs' history. Led by Abdullayev, Olimpik improved its results, ranked 6th in 2007 and 2nd in 2008. Olimpik came very closed to win 2007–08 league title, but the team was beaten by Qarabag at last round game, although they only had to play a draw.

Olimpik's debut in European competitions was also not successful as they were eliminated in the 1st qualifying round of 2008–09 UEFA Cup by Serbian side Vojvodina.

This page also has a version in other languages :  Шувелан (russian)