Armenia U21 Risk Ending the Year with Just Four Matches

Armenia’s U21 national team will most likely not play any friendly matches this summer. If that happens, the team could finish the calendar year with only four official games.

At the moment, there are no scheduled friendly matches, and the Federation has not announced any summer training camp.

For the youth national team, this is an extremely limited amount of match practice. This is especially concerning given that the U21 team should serve as the main reserve for Armenia’s senior national team and as an important stage in the development of young footballers.

In recent years, Armenia’s youth team has traditionally played friendly matches mainly before the start of a new qualifying cycle — roughly once every two years. The current qualification campaign is still ongoing, so additional friendly matches apparently are not planned.

Armenia U21 started the year with two matches in Group 5 of the UEFA European Under-21 Championship qualification, losing 4-1 to Poland and 2-0 to North Macedonia. In October, the team will face Montenegro and Italy.

However, this situation can hardly be seen as positive. The youth national team is not only a side that takes part in qualification tournaments. It is also an important platform for an early look at promising players, for adapting footballers to the demands of the national team setup, and for gradually preparing them for the senior national team level.

It was through U21 matches that both foreign-based players and footballers from the Armenian domestic championship made their way into Armenia’s senior national team. Among such players, one can recall Kalukyan, Manvelyan, Geragusyan, Muradyan and many others.

For young players, a call-up to the youth national team often becomes the first serious step in international football. It is an opportunity to experience the atmosphere of the national team, become familiar with the coaching staff’s requirements, prove themselves among their peers and attract the attention of the country’s senior team.

Four matches in a calendar year is too little for the full development and evaluation of players’ potential. This is especially true considering that Armenia has players abroad who could have been tested specifically in friendly matches.

For example, Albert Aleksanjan could have been called up in the summer. He had previously been on the radar of several federations, including Armenia, but eventually received a call-up from Latvia. A similar approach had already been used with other foreign-based players: they were invited precisely for friendly matches in order to take a closer look at their abilities and understand how ready they were for the Armenian national team system.

In the current situation, the youth national team risks losing valuable time. Without additional matches, the coaching staff has fewer opportunities for experiments, while young footballers have fewer chances to make a statement.

For a country with limited squad depth, the youth national team should be one of the key tools for football development. Therefore, the number of matches played by the U21 side is not just a calendar detail, but an important part of the overall work aimed at shaping the future of Armenia’s senior national team.

As a reminder, Armenia’s senior national team will play two friendly matches against Kazakhstan and Moldova on June 6 and 9.