FC Pyunik
Pyunik Football Club (Armenian: Փյունիկ Ֆուտբոլային Ակումբ – Pyunik Futbolayin Akumb), is an Armenian professional football club based in Yerevan. It is one of the most popular football clubs in Armenia. The club owns its private Nairi Stadium in Yerevan, but due to the bad infrastructure of the venue, Pyunik plays its home games in the Republican Stadium of Yerevan.[1]
History
Founded in 1992, Pyunik (Armenian for "Phoenix") has won a record 12 Armenian Championships, along with 4 Armenian Cups, and 6 Armenian Supercups. The club is considered in Armenia as one of the most popular Armenian football clubs since the establishment of the Armenian Premier League in 1992. It was founded as Homenetmen Yerevan, and kept that name until the 1995–96 season, when it was renamed as Pyunik. After winning the title twice as FC Pyunik, troubles began as the club started to financially struggle, and eventually disbanded in 1999.
Pyunik's new era began in 2001, when Pyunik absorbed FC Armenikum and automatically gained promotion to the Armenian Premier League without playing a single game in the lower leagues. The club's owner, wealthy Armenian businessman Ruben Hayrapetyan, took a much more serious approach to the club and brought star players such as Artavazd Karamyan and Arman Karamyan from other Armenian clubs. FC Pyunik was not satisfied with what it already had, and improved the team more by bringing some foreign managers and players from Mali, Cameroon, Argentina and later from Romania. These improvements returned quick results, and Pyunik won the Armenian title the same year and the Armenian Cup in 2002. Later, for the first time in independent Armenian club history an Armenian club advanced to the second round in the Champions League. Afterwards, the club won the Armenian Premier League title nine times in a row.
Rivalry
Pyunik's main two rivals are Ararat and Banants, however, the rivalry with Ararat is a lot more fierce than that of Banants. The reason for that is because Ararat is known to be the most loved club of Yerevan because of its Soviet accomplishments, and Banants was originally based in the region of Kotayk, and was only moved to Yerevan in 2001. Another category Banants and Pyunik compete is their youth academies, which are considered to be the two best academies in the country.
Youth academy
Pyunik owns modern and high developed training facilities in Yerevan as part of Pyunik Academy. Over the years Pyunik proved that it has strongest youth school in Armenia. The proof is that most of Armenian youth national team players are representing Pyunik, besides in 2005, Armenia U-19 team participated in final tournament of the European Under-19 Football Championship.[2] Few examples of Pyunik's products are Edgar Manucharyan, Robert Arzumanyan, Gevorg Ghazaryan, Apoula Edel and Henrik Mkhitaryan, who all began representing Armenia national team from very young ages.
Achievements
( 1992, 1995/96, 1996/97, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010 )
( 1996, 2002, 2004, 2009, 2010 )
( 1997, 2001, 2003, 2004, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2010 )
Pyunik in European Cups
As of July, 2010.
- Home results are noted in bold
Current squad
- As of 14 August 2011
Note: Flags indicate national team as has been defined under FIFA eligibility rules. Players may hold more than one non-FIFA nationality.
Notable past players
- Armenia
|
- Europe
- South America
|
- Africa
|
References
External links
|
FC Pyunik
|
|
|
|
|
| History |
|
|
| Ground |
|
|
| Related articles |
Pyunik-2 · Pyunik-3
|
|
| Categories |
Players · Managers · All articles
|
|