FC Ravshan Kulob, a Tajikistan professional football club based in Kulob City of Khatlan Region in southern Tajikistan. The cub established as FK Ansol Kulob in the year 1965. The club renamed in 2005 as Ravshan Kulob and played in the Ligai Olii, the premier division of Tajikistan domestic football.
Ravshan one of the top team of the Tajikistan Football having won the League in 2012 and 2013. Last season they came 7 points behind the League champion Istiklol. That 2nd placed finish earn their spot in the newly formed AFC Champions League 2. They have also participated in AFC Cup previously and played 17 matches but manage to win just 1 match out of all their matches.
Their AFC journey started in 2012/13 season where they placed in Group D but they failed to manage a single point and finished it with 0 point. So far they have managed win just one match in AFC Cup campaign that is also in Qualification round in 2013/14 season. But last year they did manage to get 3 points in their Group. They manage to get 2 draws at their home matches. So it is obvious that the opponent had little bit difficulties played in their home Kulob Markaziy Stadium.
This year they are in 5th position of their domestic league so far. They have signed one Bosnian Striker Kojo Matic who yet to opened his account this season with the club. Their highest valued player is Ghanian Centre Back Samuel Ofori who has been there with the club for last 4 years. They have another Ukranian right full back Andriy Markovych who joined couple months back also with some bags of experience. Their one of the key player in the upfront is Mukhammadzhon Rakhimov who plays in the right wing who also featured with Tajikistan National Team in last AFC Asian Cup. The squad currently have 10 non Tajik players with 4 out of 10 players currently have Tajik passport. Their Iranian born manager Masoud Nazarzadeh joined the club in February as Asst. Manager. His preferred formation is 3-5-2 and the approach against Mohun Bagan on Wednesday would be to defense in numbers and hit back at the counters. Their strong presence of Ghanian defenders are there for the aerial threat. Till now they had a very average continental exposure in AFC competition and let’s see whether they broke that deadlock this season around.
Predicted XI:
Kick off Time: 7:30PM(IST)
Live telecast/streaming: Sports18 3,FanCode App
Venue: Vivekananda Yuba Bharati Krirangan, Kolkata.
