On July 18, Yerevan’s Urartu secured a 2-0 victory against the Estonian team Kalev on their home field. With this result, Urartu advanced to the second round of the Conference League based on the aggregate score of the two matches. After the match, the head coaches of the teams shared their thoughts on the game.
Kalev’s head coach said:
“The first half was almost equal. I thought Urartu would press more and play more actively, but they let us play. We had chances but couldn’t score. In the second half, Urartu players made several individual plays that we couldn’t counter. Their new forward, Ivan Ignatyev, is of very high level. Some details decided the outcome of the match. The individual qualities of Urartu players significantly surpassed our footballers. I would especially highlight the game of Edgar Movsesyan and Ivan Ignatyev,” said Kalev’s head coach Daniel Meiel.
Urartu’s head coach said:
“We started quite disciplined and aggressive, scored a goal, and created more chances. After that, the intensity somehow disappeared, we started holding the ball too long, and the tempo was low. But we wanted to maintain high intensity. At halftime, we worked on our mistakes, made substitutions, and it worked. The second half was much more pleasing. We made conclusions, which is good.
We will strive to ensure that all footballers play at their level in all matches.
We still have injured footballers in our squad. We hope they will return and help us in the matches against the Czech team Banik. We will not make new transfers at the moment, but we have not yet announced another new player.
Many Urartu academy players participated in this match. They show great progress in the game; I wouldn’t want to single anyone out. Mikael Mirzoyan did well, scoring two goals; I also note the progress of Erik Simonyan and Narek Agasaryan. Seventeen-year-old David Harutyunyan also got playing time and spent his minutes very aggressively. Sergey Mkrtchyan returned to the field after a very serious injury, and we are all very happy for him,” said Urartu’s head coach Dmitry Gunko.