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Titleholder Pyunik who have dominated Armenia’s domestic league in the past decade, have been defeated by FK Partizan (Belgrade) in the UEFA Champions League second qualifying round.

The Serbian team had arrived in the Armenian capital with a 3-1 advantage due to their home victory over Pyunik a week before. A Partizan goal in the dying seconds of the first half during the Yerevan game of the two teams on Wednesday night gave the Serbian team a 1-0 victory and sealed their overall dominance in the tie.
For Pyunik the match was marked by the first appearance (as a second-half substitute) of their former player Edgar Manucharyan after a five-year break. The 23-year-old striker left the Armenian club in 2005 to join Dutch side FC Ajax. He returned to Yerevan recently to join his former club.

Earlier this month, Armenia’s FC Banants and FC Ulis featured in the UEFA Europa League, the other pan-European club tournament, were eliminated in the first knockout round after dropping their two-leg ties against Anorthosis (Cyprus) and FC Bnei Yehuda (Israel), respectively.

FC Mika now remain Armenia’s only hope in a European tournament this season. The Yerevan-based club hosts the second leg of the UEFA Europa League second qualifying round on Thursday (July 22) against Macedonia’s FK Rabotnicki, who hold a slender 1-0 lead after last week’s first leg in Skopje.

Interestingly, last Friday’s draw for the third qualifying round (July 29 and August 5) appears to have given some extra incentive to the tie contestants as its winner is scheduled to play against English football club Liverpool, the five-time European champions. No Armenian club has ever played against a competitor of Liverpool’s caliber.

Armenia, which boasts a mid-70s team, Ararat, dominating the USSR championships and competing as an equal with grand European sides, has yet to see its first club progressing to the crucial stages of European competitions in the post-independence period.