FIFA: Armenia’s long wrestle for success
With all its dramas and turmoil, the 20th century was not kind on Armenia, where sport and football were far from a priority. The country nevertheless emerged from it all with a resilience and strength that can also be found in its clubs and national team.
The number one sport in Armenia is wrestling, which is not very surprising when you consider that eight of the 16 Olympic medals the nation has won in its history have come in the sport, including its only two gold medals. Weightlifting with seven and boxing with one account for the rest of the country’s medal haul.
But what of football? Nicknamed the Havaqakan (‘The Squad’), Armenia’s national team has yet to appear at the FIFA World Cup™ or UEFA EURO finals, but it has had its moments over the years.
A decade of success
Armenian football had its first taste of success in the 1970s, when the country formed part of the USSR. Flying the flag for Armenia at the time were Ararat Erevan. Founded in 1935, the club from the capital brought an end to the long period of domination enjoyed by the heavyweights of Ukraine and Russia. Between 1936 and 1965, the Moscow quartet of Dynamo, Spartak, CSKA and Torpedo won all but two Soviet league championships, before Dynamo Kiev took over, winning six titles between the mid-1960s and mid-1970s.
Ararat Yerevan muscled their way in to win the league in 1973, a season in which they also lifted the Soviet Cup to complete a remarkable double. Their success came as a complete shock. Not only were Ararat relative outsiders, they also played the game in a different way to their rivals. Unlike the big Kiev and Moscow teams, who were all about tactical discipline and quick passing, the Ararat players were encouraged by their coach Nikita Simonyan to express themselves and dribble with the ball. Working together as a team, they had no true star players.
Ararat also enjoyed success further afield. In the 1974/75 European Cup they knocked out Viking FK of Norway in the first round and Cork Celtic in the second to earn a quarter-final tie against a mighty Bayern Munich side led by Franz Beckenbauer and containing a clutch of World Cup winners from Germany 1974. Though Bayern – the eventual champions – won 2-1 on aggregate, the Armenians nevertheless claimed a memorable 1-0 victory in the second leg.
