“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Ararat have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Dani Figueira 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.
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.
The board have said in public what they had been saying in private. Results between now and the next meeting decide it, and everybody in the building knows the arithmetic.
Nothing has been announced and everybody understands what it means. A board that summons the whole football department on a Tuesday morning is a board that has stopped believing the problem will fix itself.
Player ratings7 Jun 2032
Ararat Ghazaryan, 18, plays like he has been here for years — 7.61
A mark of 7.61 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 18-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.11 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Dani Figueira 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.
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 player who expected to start watched it instead. The manager will call it a decision for the team; Najmiddin Normurodov will call it something else in private.
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.
The words a physio says slowly. 15 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.
The board had gone up, the arguing had started, and then the ball was in the net in the 93th minute. Van will replay every second of the added time for a week.
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.
Squad15 Mar 2032
Words at Ararat training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Grigory Morozov 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.
23 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Ararat lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Vahan Sarkisov has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
Nothing has been announced and everybody understands what it means. A board that summons the whole football department on a Tuesday morning is a board that has stopped believing the problem will fix itself.
4 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
Dani Figueira 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.
13 boys move up, and somewhere in the building the people who coached them at twelve are quietly having the best morning of their working year. Nothing about this shows up in a result and it is why the academy exists.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Ararat Simonyan has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
30 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. 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 Ararat this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad1 Mar 2032
Words at Ararat training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Grigory Morozov 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.
37 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Ararat lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Ararat is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Dani Figueira 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.
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.
Nobody at Ararat will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
44 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. 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 Ararat this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
51 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Ararat lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
58 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Ararat lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at Ararat can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
The official line will be that it was routine. It was not routine, the timing says so, and every person in that room knows what the next bad result costs.
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.
Squad2 Feb 2032
Alan Aguirre 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.
65 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Ararat lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Ararat will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Ararat is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Dani Figueira 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.
72 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Ararat lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Ararat will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
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.
In brief
SquadAlan Aguirre falls out with a teammate over standards
The words a physio says slowly. 115 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.
The board have said in public what they had been saying in private. Results between now and the next meeting decide it, and everybody in the building knows the arithmetic.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 103 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
The words a physio says slowly. 122 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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 110 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Volodya Samsonyan will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Ararat the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad1 Dec 2031
A muscle injury sidelines Malick Berté for 14 days
Nobody makes a documentary about a hamstring and everybody in the game fears one. Ararat will be careful with the return date, because the second one is always worse than the first.
Dani Figueira 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.
The words a physio says slowly. 129 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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 117 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Ararat, and it is not being withdrawn.
16 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Ararat lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 124 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 73 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
The words a physio says slowly. 70 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.
Position 5 and 10 points, and the table gets read bottom-up in this part of town. The calendar has stopped being a schedule and started being a countdown.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Jefferson Ramos is living that version at Ventspils, and it tends to show in the first month.