Marked for Robert Spertsyan
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad2 Oct 2028
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Pyunik can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Squad2 Oct 2028
A row about effort at Pyunik
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Luisão was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout2 Oct 2028
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Squad2 Oct 2028
Alemão signs on for more
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Alemão and Pyunik agree another 2 years.
Boardroom2 Oct 2028
Wages swallow 90% of the Pyunik income
Every club pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time it has been tried.
Squad2 Oct 2028
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Robert Spertsyan is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
Boardroom2 Oct 2028
Pyunik counting the cost
The accounts make uncomfortable reading. Wages first and ambition second is the order of business at Pyunik now.
The dugout2 Oct 2028
Witi has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Pyunik 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.
Market2 Oct 2028
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Sergiy Vakulenko has his answer from Pyunik; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match16 Sep 2028
The wait goes on for Pyunik-2
14 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
Market18 Sep 2028
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Pyunik-2 can pretend not to have heard.
Player ratings18 Sep 2028
Narek Grigoryan, 16, plays like he has been here for years — 7.80
A mark of 7.80 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 16-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
The terraces18 Sep 2028
At 16 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.
Match16 Sep 2028
Conceding is one thing; the response is what tells you about a dressing room. Robert Spertsyan had Pyunik-2 level again within 3 minutes, and Ararat-Armenia-2 never got to play with a lead at all.
Match16 Sep 2028
It finished 1‑1, and it somehow always looked like it would. One of those afternoons where the table moves less than the tempers.
Looking ahead18 Sep 2028
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Levon Petrosyan’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Pyunik-2 needing him to play as if none of it matters.
Market18 Sep 2028
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Pyunik-2 know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Market18 Sep 2028
The shop window has Kamil Mullin in it
Pyunik-2 have let the market know Kamil Mullin can be had. No price in the advert, but everyone in the trade knows roughly what it says.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Boardroom6 Mar 2028
Pyunik told to sell
The instruction came from the boardroom and the dugout did not agree with it. Somebody will go, the fee will be called good business, and the manager will spend the season rebuilding around the space.
Squad6 Mar 2028
“The easiest signature of my career.” Javi Moreno and Pyunik agree another 3 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Boardroom6 Mar 2028
5 academy players handed senior numbers at Pyunik
The morning the pathway stops being a brochure and becomes a team sheet. Most of them will not be here in three years; all of them have already done the hard part, which was getting to today.
Match4 Mar 2028
Nobody wins at Pyunik
9 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
Squad6 Mar 2028
Words at Pyunik training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Luisão 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.
Boardroom6 Mar 2028
Nothing happens for months and then he simply arrives, at no cost, having signed a pre-contract while still turning out for somebody else. It is the least dramatic way to sign a footballer and frequently the shrewdest.
Squad6 Mar 2028
Tempers go at Pyunik
Enej Kramberger 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.
Market6 Mar 2028
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Henrikh Grigoryan 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.
Market6 Mar 2028
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Arman Spertsyan is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.