Yeghishe Melikyan: "It's very disappointing that we lost, but I'm proud of Pyunik's players"

Pyunik head coach Yeghishe Melikyan shared his thoughts at the press conference after the 1-3 loss to Győr and elimination from the second round of the UEFA Europa Conference League qualifiers.

Melikyan commented on the elimination from the second round of the Conference League qualifiers, pointing out the reasons for the failure and speaking about the refereeing.

"First of all, I want to congratulate the opponent — it was a well-deserved victory. If we had won, it would also have been a well-deserved victory. Both teams were worthy. There are reasons why we could not advance further. I think we lacked resources: we had few players, some were not fully ready for the matches, and there were also those for whom it was still too early to play at this level. As a result, we had few opportunities to strengthen the game in the second half.

I can be criticized, and surely will be, for not playing attacking football as the dominant side, but I am obliged to assess my team's capabilities and build the game plan for the away match based on that. At this moment, we were not ready to play as the dominant side against such an opponent. At the end of the match, we managed to settle in the opponent's half and play dominant football, but by then the opponent had already done their job and allowed us to play that way.

In the first half, our plan was to play from defense, but the opponent pressed too hard, and we were forced to sit too deep.

It is very disappointing that we lost, but I am satisfied with my team and proud of the players."

On the referee:
"Yes, the referee should have shown a second yellow card to Krpic, and we would have been playing with a man advantage. Not only that incident — in the final minutes, a penalty could also have been awarded in our favor when the ball hit a hand. But this has nothing to do with the defeat."

On rumors about being invited to coach the Armenian national team:
"There are always such rumors, but personally no one has told me anything about it. What will happen later, I don’t know, but if they contact me, then I will talk about it."