Nikolai Alho 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.
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.
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.
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 Nov 2026
Words at Ararat training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nikolai Alho 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.
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
Words at Ararat training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Luis Vargas 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.
Artur Kartashyan 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.
Words at Ararat training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nikolai Alho 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.
Albert Khachumyan 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.
At 24 the improving is meant to be over. It is not: 3 points better than the mark taken at the start of the year, which is the sort of thing that happens to players who take the boring parts of the job seriously.
15 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.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Ararat are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Luis Vargas 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.
22 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.
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and Ararat know it.
Daniel Chávez 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.
In brief
SquadLuis Vargas falls out with a teammate over standards
Boardroom402% of the income goes out in wages at Ararat
29 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.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Miha Birsa is living that version at Ararat, and it tends to show in the first month.
In brief
SquadNikolai Alho falls out with a teammate over standards
The words a physio says slowly. 37 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.
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.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Words at Ararat training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nikolai Alho 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.
The words a physio says slowly. 44 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.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Words at Ararat training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Luis Vargas 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.
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.
In brief
SquadThe manager has not finished forgetting Albert Khachumyan's mistake
52 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.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Words at Ararat training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nikolai Alho 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.
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
1 kept out in the shoot-out, and a stadium that will still be describing them in twenty years. A goalkeeper only needs one of these to be remembered forever.
Successful dribbles: 28. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
The terraces31 Aug 2026
Supporters turn on the $320.0K sale of Ernest Kacou
He is going to Ararat-Armenia, the club has $320.0K it did not have on Friday, and the phone-ins have already decided how they feel about that. Selling well and selling somebody they loved are not the same skill.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.08 at 38, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Luis Vargas 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.
6 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Ararat and Alashkert in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
Ararat-Armenia pay $320.0K, and the deal is done. The number reads well on a balance sheet; whether it reads well on the pitch is next season's question.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Nikolai Alho 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.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.66 at 34, and nobody on the pitch was better.
The name of Kalifala Doumbia has come up in conversations Ararat were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
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.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Luis Vargas 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.
There is a level at which a footballer stops being tested and starts being contained, and he reached it some time ago. Ararat know it, and so does everybody who watches him.
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.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Nikolai Alho 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.
He is doing things on a Saturday afternoon that nobody around him can answer, which is flattering for about one season and a problem after that. Ararat will not keep him by pretending otherwise.
Luis Vargas is 38 and has run out of things to prove. What he has left is where to stand, when to slow it down and what to say at half-time, and none of that is on a fitness chart.
A year in and the language has not come, the city has not opened up, and he eats alone more often than anybody at Ararat would like to admit. It is showing on Saturdays.
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.
He is doing things on a Saturday afternoon that nobody around him can answer, which is flattering for about one season and a problem after that. Ararat will not keep him by pretending otherwise.
“There is a gap, and pretending there is not helps nobody.” Neither side has moved, and the calendar is working for exactly one of them.
Squad10 Aug 2026
7 new faces, and Ararat are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
Yaya Sogodogo 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.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Words at Ararat training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Gor Lulukyan 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.
He is doing things on a Saturday afternoon that nobody around him can answer, which is flattering for about one season and a problem after that. Ararat will not keep him by pretending otherwise.
Still no offer on the table, and Yaya Sogodogo’s deal keeps shrinking. In boardroom language, silence this long stops being an oversight and starts being an answer.