Qarabag team made bizarre travel decision ahead of Newcastle United clash tonight at St James' Park
As if Qarabag FK's task wasn't already daunting enough tonight, as they seek to overturn a five-goal deficit at St James' Park in the Champions League play-off second leg against Newcastle United, the club made a strange preparation choice ahead of the fixture.
The 2500-mile journey is less than favourable, no matter how you look at it, but Newcastle managed to deal with it admirably last week, roaring into a 5-0 lead at half-time in the fixture out in Baku.
The Magpies landed in Azerbaijan the day before the game and took time to undergo a training session on the pitch to get acclimatised.
However, chasing the tie, the Azerbaijani side have taken a very different approach, training in Baku before flying to England.
Qarabag are going to be sleepwalking around the pitch tonight
The Qarabag side arrived in Newcastle last night at around 10:40pm, which is 2:40am Azerbaijan time. The game kicks off at 8pm tonight, which, to the Qarabag players, is essentially midnight.
Landing less than 24 hours before the game with such a huge time difference is hardly ideal preparation.
If Newcastle can't take advantage of that tonight, then we're going to have to ask some serious questions.
This is a golden opportunity for Newcastle to be ruthless
It does suggest that tonight's opposition have pretty much just thrown in the towel, which you can kind of understand, but they should have taken some solace in the fact that they actually gave Newcastle a good game in the second half last week.
We're not saying they could close that five-goal gap, but they could at least try.
Oh well. Hopefully, Newcastle will be relentless tonight and maybe set a few goal-scoring records in the Champions League as they run around the sleepwalking Qarabag side.
