This is it, then! The Champions League arrives in Wrexham, and I couldn’t be more excited! Hosting a group at the preliminary stage of the competition gives us an exciting opportunity to get a taste of the standard of football we are aspiring towards, and take our first steps towards doing just that.
It’s a broad range of opponents that will visit us: two from the east and one from the UK.
Riga and Glentoran face off in the other semi-final, but let’s focus on our immediate opponents, who aren’t actually from Europe at all! Pyunik are champions of Armenia, which is a member of UEFA but actually located in Asia. After the break-up of the Soviet Union, the splinter states to the west were offered the opportunity to remain within European football, and understandably accepted. Just a little pedantic note before I go on: Armenian is a singular language, the sole occupant of its own group of Indo-European tongues, with its own alphabet. Therefore, all English name-spellings are transliterations: if you see different spelling, that’s only natural. The good thing (for me, at least) is that transliterations tend to sound like they should, with few tricky silent letters and unexpected pronunciations!
Pyunik play in a four-team league, and are the dominant force in Armenian football. They were promoted in their first season of existance, and have won the league comfortably in each of the subsequent three seasons. Last season the sides played each other six times each, and Pyunik had a 100% record, scoring one goal short of an average of six goals a match and conceding just eight! Teir season runs over a similar time scale to the Adran Premier.
Public information on them is scarce, and scouting them won’t have been easy for their opponents in the group. That was perfectly encapsulated when, at 6.21 p.m. on the eve of the Wrexham game, they suddenly announced they had six new players! Even Pyunik seem to have been caught out by this: they say Lourdes Roberta was signed from Ukrainian team Pantery, but a month ago she was a regular in the Brazilian second division! There’s no evidence they’ve been playing friendlies before this match, but surely they must have been!
Their European record suggests that in domestic football they’re shooting fish in a barrel, which is no preparation for continental opposition. Not that they’ve been overwhelmed by any means, but both their previous campaigns in the Champions League have ended at this stage.
In 2024-25, they drew the Cypriot hosts of their group, Apollon, and lost 3-0, although a goal in the fifth minute of added time made the result look worse than the performance merited. Funnily enough, in the third place game they faced Glentoran and lost 1-0.
The following season they registered their first European win in North Macedonia, beating Bulgarian champions Sofia 1-0 through an injury time goal. In the final they came a cropper when, once again, they came up against the hosts, Ljuboten, losing 4-0.
Nine of their current squad have international experience with the Armenian national team, with four of them playing in the most recent international, a 6-0 defeat to Belarus in a 2027 World Cup Qualifier: 19 year old goalkeeper Lilit Babayan; driving midfielder Susanna Badalyan; versatile striker Ani Karapetyan, who is a tall, physical presence who likes to drop into deeper positions; and Isabella Nersesyan is one of the new signings, returning to Pyunik after a season in Poland.
The new arrivals bring a wealth of experience with them: Misha Koyari has been playing in Slovakia and Carla Scanio was a professional in Argentina. There are others I’ll get to, and you wouldn’t think they’ve come to Pyunik without expecting to appear in the Champions League.
There’s plenty of competition for the goalkeeping position too as Lena Andriasyan has caps for ArmeniaThey’re both named in the squad for this tournament (UEFA’s registration rules are remarkable relaxed if you have locally-developed players – you can essentially have an infinite number of players!) However, a new arrival looks likely to be playing between the posts: Amber Lockwood is an American who has been playing in Portugal top division for Damaiense. She looks impressive: aggressive in the air and fast off her line.
Of the players who won the league last season, there are two obvious star players. One is undoubtedly skipper, and former national captain, Ani Ghukasyan. A gifted veteran, now 35-years old, she can play up front or in the centre of midfield and is a skilful customer whose range of neat flicks, turns and deft right-footed chips can open up a defence.
The other, Luisa Ghazaryan, was a sensation last season. The league’s player of the year, she scored 23 goals and made 16 assists in the 18-match season, and didn’t miss a minute of the campaign. She wasn’t top scorer though: Veronika Asatryan got 27 goals, and with Karapetyan also managing 20, they boasted the top three scorers in the division. Where coach Manuk Sargsyan chooses to deploy Ghazaryan will be revealing. With so much attacking talent in their squad (it’s no coincidence that defence and midfield solidity are the focus of the new signings), she is often used on the left, pushing high into dangerous areas to take advantage of the lack of serious domestic opposition. If he decides to be more cautious, expect to see Astghir Avanesyan on the left, although she can also be aggressive in her intent going forward.
With high wing-backsand an energetic man-to-man marking approach when they lose the ball, they have the wherewithal to put pressure on Wrexham when we play out from the back, but equally the Red Dragons could set a tempo which is higher than Pyunik are used to in domestic football. Pyunik can lose intensity in their man-to-man marking in the second half, and the pace of Katie Barker, assuming she has recovered from the knock that forced her off against Sporting JAX, could trouble their back three.
It’s a fascinating test. Pyunik certainly look better than the standard we face in the Adran Premier, but aren’t as strong as Sporting JAX, who were so impressive at The Rock last week.
Fasten your seatbelts kids: this is going to be another crazy chapter in the Wrexham adventure!
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