After the end of the Euro-2024 qualifying round, the Football Federation of Armenia extended the contract with the Ukrainian head coach of the Armenian national team, Alexander Petrakov. It is not known under what conditions and how long it was extended, but… Under the leadership of this specialist, the national team of Armenia will perform in the League of Nations next fall, which is part of the qualifying round of the 2026 World Championship. FFA president Armen Melikbekyan recently announced that our main team has a task to win in the C division selection subgroup. The decision of the football federation regarding Petrakov can be considered absolutely correct. In the qualifying round of Euro-2024, the national team of Armenia scored 8 points and took the 4th place in the group. In 8 matches, we won two matches, tied the same number of matches and suffered 4 defeats.
In those 8 matches, our national team scored 9 and missed 11 goals. In this electoral cycle, the team led by Alexander Petrakov did not suffer any major defeats. Moreover, 3 out of 4 defeats of our national team were recorded with a minimum score and only once we lost by two goals. In particular, on October 12 in Riga, our football players lost the game to Latvia with a score of 2:0. Midfielder Lukas Selarayan became the best scorer of our selection in the qualifying round of Euro-2024 with 3 goals. He scored all the goals in the two qualifying matches with Wales. In this way, Selarayan became one of the ten oldest footballers who scored a goal in the national team, scoring a goal for Wales at the age of 31 years and 151 days. The record holder is Sargis Hovsepyan, who stood out in the team at the age of 36 years and 311 days in 2009. scoring against the Belgians. For 20-year-old defender Styopa Mkrtchyan, the last match against the Croats was the 15th as part of the Armenian national team. He surpassed the age record of Edgar Manucharyan and Henrikh Mkhitaryan, who played 14 games each, more than all the players who played in the national team at that age. Styopa Mkrtchyan made her debut in the national team of Armenia in 2022. in a friendly match with the national team of Montenegro on March 24 in Yerevan. Anyway, let’s take a look at the past. The performance of the Armenian national team in the qualifying round of the 2022 World Cup raised a wave of dissatisfaction among the fans. Let’s remind that our national team took the 4th position in the selection sub-group J, having scored 12 points in 10 games.
Many of us expected that the Armenian team would be able to win at least a place in the playoffs of the World Championship, but… If we compare this result with the results recorded by our team in the previous election rounds, then we should evaluate it as satisfactory. Our team finished the qualifying round of the 2016 European Championship with only 2 points. And in general, during the history of the Armenian national team, it was possible to score 10 or more points in the group tournament only four times. We managed to score 10 points in the qualifying round of the 2020 European Championship. In the qualifying round of the 2014 World Championship, under the leadership of Vardan Minasyan, our team scored 13 points. The best result was achieved by the Armenian national team in the qualifying round of the 2012 European Championship, scoring 17 points.
It turns out that the national team of Armenia led by Joaquin Kaparos showed the 3rd best result in its history in the 2022 World Championship qualifying tournament. An important observation, in the last qualifying tournament, the Armenian national team was included in the 8-team subgroup. If, as a result of the draw, we would get a competitor from the lowest 6th basket, there is a high probability that our team would score 14 points in 6 games. Let’s not forget that in the qualifying round of the 2022 World Championship, the national team of Armenia suffered 3 major defeats. The team of Kaparos lost 6:0 to Germany while visiting, and lost to them in Yerevan with a score of 1:4. Our national team also lost to North Macedonia with a score of 0:5. In general, the result recorded by the Armenian national team led by Petrakov can be considered normal. Yes, we did not win a ticket to Euro-2024, but in general we showed quality football. Especially in terms of quality, our performance should be considered a step forward. We think many will agree that Alexander Petrakov has laid the foundation stone that has great potential for development.
#FFAs #decision #Petrakov #goal #coming #year..
