WE OFFICIALLY SUCK!!!!

Armen, now I completely agree with you. Though I think it is very difficult to make such reforms. But they have to work hard on it. It is a pity that football is such a popular sport in Armenia but most kids end up playing it on asphalt in the streets between the cars. But again you will never have a good football team unless you have people talking about it and asking tough questions. There is only one site about football, armfootball.com and they are usually very mild and never ask tough questions. More like this or that said it is a great honor to play for the national side and etc. It could be that the federation, in particular, nemec Rubo intimidated them. There used to be a tougher newspaper called football+ but it mysteriously disappeared. They also had some kind of conflict with Rubo. At any rate, just having an infrastructure for producing athletes isn't enough, you will have to have an intelligent public wondering why certain things don't happen. Ultimately, we can consider not playing soccer. It is an expansive sport and we can instead try other sports. I won't actually be surprised if our football industry is losing rather than making profit, but again they never let us know whats happening.

Regarding physical education in Armenia, i should have been more clear. Yes, physical education is offered in Armenia and it's typically 3 days a week and 45 minutes a class. I should have said, high school level kids in Armenia should be offered the chance to join sports teams in their public schools (ie: football, basketball, tennis, swimming...) and compete with other school kids in their area. Overall school campuses in Armenia lack the necessary fields for participation for most sports specially football, tennis, swimming, weight training, (basketball gyms are often available yet not used to its potential). Currently the only opportunity kids in Armenia have to participate in competitive sports is by joining a paid (fee basis) sports club, and not all can afford to do so nor have the desire to do so. Without the ability for Armenia to offer free opportunity for every kid to participate in competitive sports, and highly encourage masses to compete, we can not expect Armenia's sports teams to be competitive in the world. As is, vast majority of Armenia’s kids growing up today do not participate in competitive sports and its results are showing up with our national football team being humiliated on our own home field by our foe Turkey. The current top down policy of Armenia’s football federation of continuously replacing our national football team’s foreign coaches and expecting to get better results is never going to work. Armenia’s policy towards improving our sports teams should be from bottom up by doing the difficult work of providing free opportunity and highly level encouragement to younger generation to compete in sports and especially football, in order to have better chances of winning in the future and not be continuously humiliated at world level competitions.

Armen, Do you live in Armenia? I don't know, I grew up in Armenia and physical education is not only mandatory in schools but also in colleges in Armenia. Half of what you say is to the point but I think there are lots of things that don't correspond to the reality in Armenia at least the one I knew. Smoking is there but if you go to Europe, Germany say, then there is a lot more of it then in Armenia especially among females. Armenians in general do have a very healthy diet compare to fast food culture of America or predominantly meat eating culture of northern Europe. Of course we need more of everything but it is a poor country and these things you mention don't come cheap. You cannot expect people to play sports, say soccer, where there are almost no soccer fields open to the public in the city. There is not even a space for anyone to build a solid soccer field in the city. Gyms are expansive and in general all these things are very expansive. But the government should encourage investments and it should invest as well. But this is not why we keep losing. We keep losing because we don't care. We rarely discuss how our teams are managed. Our teams are very poorly managed and it is hard to expect a victory from them. Again you have to blame everyone here not just those who are running the federation. Media never criticizes them, people never demand more, and the federation just does the least one needs to do in order to have some kind of soccer team.

In my opinion, Armenia's national football team will not improve unless Armenia's population drastically changes from being vast majority cigarette smoking, unhealthy diet, and absolutely no exercise or participation in competitive team sports or weight training. A simple look around the country of Armenia typically reveals two types of men, those that are skinny to the bones, or those who’s stomachs are so fat they look pregnant, one will rarely see any men in Armenia that have the average 30-35% muscle mass of body weight on them. A good study on average muscle mass in men in Armenia is needed and i expect it to be far less than any normal country. It's also very hypocritical of those Armenians who complain about Armenian's sports teams yet they themselves and their children live the type of life style that is unhealthy and counterproductive to sports advancement of Armenia. I also think the ministry of sports and education in Armenia should lead the way in promoting healthy life style and push advancement in team competitive sports in Armenia specially at school level. For one, all schools in Armenia should add physical education to their curriculum and provide the necessary location for sports activities even if that requires taking the students to the nearest sports filed outside of the school campus. Otherwise, we should continue to expect the failure of our nations football, basketball and other team sports for many more years to come.