Post by Bozur on Apr 14, 2009 7:52:58 GMT -5
Soccer: No luck for Armenia in Tallinn either on or off the pitch
By Suren Musayelyan
ArmeniaNow reporter
Published: 03 April, 2009
Under a new, caretaker manager, underperforming Armenia failed again to impress in Tallinn as they were beaten by the home side 1-0 in a World Cup 2010 qualifier Wednesday late afternoon.
Sander Puri scored the winner for Estonia seven minutes from time dashing Armenia’s hopes for a positive result after a hard-achieved draw in Yerevan four days earlier.
Armenia dominated most of the first half, with Pyunik midfielder Artur Yedigaryan nearly scoring with a powerful shot in the 22nd minute. The visitors kept pressing in the second half but Estonia goalkeeper Sergei Pareiko saved his team twice in the space of two minutes early on.
The result leaves Armenia in the bottom spot in six-nation European Zone qualifying Group 5 with only one point earned in six games and trailing fifth-placed Estonia by four points.
Two days before the match in Tallinn, Armenia’s soccer governing body sacked Dane Jan Poulsen as the team’s head coach after a 2-2 home draw with Estonia on March 28. Poulsen’s assistant Vardan Minasyan has taken over as caretaker manager. (Next Armenia plays Bosnia & Herzegovina at home on September 5.)
Armenia’s midweek match in Estonia was marred by a row that the country’s Football Federation says was triggered by Estonia’s football federation chief.
Some Estonian media carried reports on April 1, only hours before the game, quoting Aivar Pohlak as accusing the Football Federation of Armenia (FFA) of ‘indecent behavior’.
But the Armenian body lashed back at Estonia’s chief soccer functionary accusing him of not allowing the team to have proper training before the match in the Estonian capital.
Some Estonian federation officials had cited heavy rains in Tallinn the day before as a reason for Armenia not to train in the city’s A Le Coq stadium where the match would be held the following day.
But FFA Executive Director Armen Minasyan explained that there were good weather conditions on that afternoon and finding the pitch perfectly suitable for exercise (despite some Estonian claims to the opposite) Armenia players, after being given corresponding permission, were about to start their training at A Le Coq when a person, who later turned out to be Pohlak, began to shout at them from the stand using abusive language.
The team, according to Minasyan, had to cut its training short and leave the stadium.
“It is difficult to imagine that the president of the Football Federation of Estonia can permit himself to make such statements,” Minasyan commented, through the Armenian Federation’s official website, on the Estonian media reports carrying Pohlak’s claims.
The FFA representative also denied as false Pohlak’s claims that Armenians ‘threatened some kind of revenge’ [in Yerevan] if the two teams were drawn together in the same group again.
“He [Pohlak] is not even aware that our youth and women’s teams are in the same group and we, on the contrary, will organize an even better reception so that he understands what real hospitality is,” Minasyan emphasized.
The FFA official added, however, that barring from that incident of unacceptable behavior shown by the Estonian Federation chief, “all other officials of the Estonian Federation showed a due level of reception”.
The FFA further reported that some 10 minutes before the Estonia v Armenia match on Wednesday, in front of about 30 journalists in Tallinn, Pohlak publicly offered his apologies to his Armenian counterpart and expressed a wish for continued warm relations. Ruben Hayrapetyan, reportedly, accepted it.
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