SPORTSWORLD.AM
In the third round of the Fastex Premier League, Armenian champion/cupholder NOA hosted Kapan Gandzasar at home.
The Yerevan team suffered a painful defeat to Gibraltar's Lincoln Red Imps in the third qualifying round of the Europa League and will continue their fight in the play-off round of the Conference League qualifying round, taking on Slovenian side Olimpia. The first match for Sandro Perkovic's men is an away match, which will take place on August 21, with the return match on August 28.
The home team started the match. Within a minute, “Noah” was awarded two corner kicks by Gor Manvelyan and his teammates, after whose passes the teammates did not make a dangerous shot. For this match, the Kapanyan club plays attacking style football, but this does not bother “Noah”, in the eighth minute of the match, Helder Ferreira opened the score after a pass from Marin Iakolis.
Arman Khachatryan and his friends managed to resist for 16 minutes, as a result of the cooperation of two Armenian national team players, Hovhannes Harutyunyan and Gor Manvelyan, the score became 2:0, after which three minutes later Luke Merrill reduced the score difference by taking advantage of Ognjen Chancharevich's mistake.
Starting from the 27th minute of the match, there was another "Gandzasar" on the field, as the head coach of the Kapan team, Karen Barseghyan, had noted after the previous round's "Urartu" Gandzasar match (0:1). When asked what to expect from "Gandzasar" in the current season, the Armenian specialist replied, "Expect a new Gandzasar," but on the way to the locker room, Japanese footballer Takuto Oshima of "NOAH" restored his team's two-goal advantage, making the score 3:1.
The game became more relaxed in the second half. Alen Grgic is not impressive in some episodes today.
Looking back at the 2024/25 Fastex Premier League season, we can say that in the competitions between these two teams, "NOA was the leader, but today the Kapan team has completely transformed, which has been replenished with a number of Armenian and foreign players: Arman Khachatryan, Vaspurak Minasyan, Levon Petrosyan, Petros Avetisyan, Takafumi Sawada, etc.
Five minutes before the end of regular time, Virgil Pinson put the finishing touch to the match from a pass from Artak Dashyan.
Thus, Hovhannes Hambardzumyan and his teammates defeat “Gandzasar” before an important confrontation, earning a total of six points, taking second place in the tournament table, while the team led by Karen Barseghyan is seventh with one point.
In the next round, NOAH will host Edgar Torosyan's Van in Abovyan, and Gandzasar will visit Bkma.