A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Patrick Handzongo has written the date down.
Benik Hovhannisyan and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Ararat-2, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Benik Hovhannisyan was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Ararat-2, another week without a signature from Patrick Handzongo.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Patrick Handzongo trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Benik Hovhannisyan and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Patrick Handzongo trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
7 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Moussa Kanté has written the date down.
The words a physio says slowly. 32 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Alen Karapetyan was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Patrick Handzongo was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Narek Hovhannisyan is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Mkhitar Hakobyan is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Signings arrive with a picture of the club in their head, and this one’s picture was bigger than the building. He will play well and he will be gone, in that order, and everybody knows it.
The words a physio says slowly. 46 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Karen Shirkhanyan and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Words at Araks Ararat training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ivan Markelov is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Araks Ararat, and both men came out saying it was fine.
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
17 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
A year in and the city has not opened up, the language has not come, and lunch is eaten alone more often than anybody at Ararat would admit. It shows on Saturdays.
53 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Araks Ararat lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Araks Ararat this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Everybody saw it before anybody said it. At 35 the numbers say 3 points down on what he was, and the question for Araks Ararat is how to handle a man they owe a great deal.
Boardroom19 Oct 2026
Nobody left the Araks Ararat dressing room in a hurry
The door stayed shut a long time after the final whistle. What was said in there is between them; whether it worked is between them and Saturday.
26 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑3, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 22 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Ararat this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager makes an example of Moussa Kanté
The words a physio says slowly. 76 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Two goals and a mark of 8.40 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
15 goals in one match, Patrick Handzongo on the scoresheet, and a scoreline that will look like a misprint. Neutrals could not have asked more of Araks Ararat and Shirak-2.
At 22 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Ararat this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Zaven Khudaverdyan is 19, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Lessinho was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
17 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
Lessinho and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Words at Ararat training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Levon Bashoyan is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Ararat, and 2 appearances in 6 say he has earned the hearing.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Ararat, another week without a signature from Vander.
The list is a quiet document with a loud meaning. Albert Khachumyan may talk to anybody who asks, and everybody at the club understands what that means.
A year in and the city has not opened up, the language has not come, and lunch is eaten alone more often than anybody at Ararat would admit. It shows on Saturdays.
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Armen Hovhannisyan has written the date down.
A new face in his position and a shirt he thought he owned suddenly up for discussion. Ararat have promised nothing, which is what clubs promise at this stage.
98 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Araks Ararat lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 32 arrived, 25 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
Araks Ararat had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Gandzasar, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
Karen Shirkhanyan and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Dmitry Guz' is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Wallace provided it, and the 9.53 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
12 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Araks Ararat and Ararat-Armenia-2 in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Ivan Markelov falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Marquinhos has, at Ararat, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $39.8K — a club that wants Kevin Pereira enough to be asked twice.
Everything agreed with another club, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: América Mineiro keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Marquinhos and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
$19.0K on the table at Alashkert. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Gabriel Oliveira is living that version at Ararat, and it tends to show in the first month.
The deal with América Mineiro is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Ararat this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Words at Ararat training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Levon Bashoyan is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Add another name to the list: Andranik have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Patrick Handzongo. The answer from Ararat has not changed — yet.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Levon Sarkisov has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.