How Ararat-Armenia Won the Armenian Premier League: Tulipa’s Role, Balanta’s Impact and Noah’s Missed Chance

Ararat-Armenia became Armenian champions for the third time in their history and reclaimed the title for the first time in six years. Before the start of the season, such an outcome was difficult to imagine: the team had lost its long-serving head coach, several leaders and important first-team players. Yet this very season turned out to be a championship-winning one for the club.

We analyze how Ararat-Armenia won the 2025/26 Armenian Premier League, what Manuel Tulipa changed, why Juan Balanta became the most important transfer, and what prevented Noah and Pyunik from taking the title.

Serious losses before the start of the season

Before the start of the campaign, it was difficult to imagine Ararat-Armenia winning the championship. In the summer of 2025, the club suffered serious losses.

The team was left by its long-serving and quite successful head coach Vardan Minasyan. Along with him, the main attacking leaders also departed — the top scorer of the 2024/25 season, Marius Noubissi, and the highly creative Eric Ocansey. Moreover, both continued their careers at a direct rival — Pyunik.

In addition, Ararat-Armenia lost one of the brightest players in the league at that time, Tenton Yenne. The best Armenian goalkeeper of the championship, Henry Avagyan, also left — again for Pyunik. Another important player and long-time club servant, Jonathan Duarte, also departed.

At first glance, replacing such losses looked extremely difficult. But in reality, the club did not try to find direct replacements for every departed leader. The reason was a large and high-quality internal squad depth.

Ararat-Armenia’s main advantage: the Armenian core

Ararat-Armenia’s key advantage is the large number of quality Armenian players in the squad. This is what allows the team to avoid serious problems with the foreign-player limit.

Unlike Noah and Pyunik, Ararat-Armenia practically does not have to adjust its lineup because of the limit. A significant part of the team’s regular starters are already Armenians. This season, defender Julio Bueno also joined that group after being naturalized and already receiving a call-up to the Armenian national team.

At the moment, Ararat-Armenia have six Armenian national team players in their squad, and many of them are players of starting-level quality for the national team:

• Kamo Hovhannisyan;
• Edgar Grigoryan;
• Arman Nersesyan;
• Artur Serobyan;
• Zhirayr Shaghoyan;
• Julio Bueno.

To this list, we should add the very experienced and high-quality Karen Muradyan and Armen Ambartsumyan, as well as young Araik Eloyan, who has also been called up to the national team. As a result, Ararat-Armenia assembled probably the best possible group of Armenian players currently available in the domestic championship.

At the same time, it is important to note that the club had this advantage before as well. Over the past four years, Ararat-Armenia consistently had a strong Armenian core, but until now they had not won the championship, although they were almost always close to the leader.

That means that this season was not only about the quality of the squad.

What Manuel Tulipa changed

One of the main factors behind the title was the work of new head coach Manuel Tulipa. The Portuguese specialist quickly found the right balance and gave the team a high-quality, high-intensity style of play.

This was already visible in the first matches of the Conference League against Universitatea Craiova. Later, the same trend continued in the Armenian Premier League.

Tulipa did not simply inherit an already assembled team. Together with his staff, he was directly involved in selecting players for transfers. Footballers from Portugal’s second division arrived at the club — players well known to the coach and suited to his demands. They filled positions not occupied by Armenian players and complemented the team’s core well.

Juan Balanta: the transfer that changed a lot

It cannot be said that all summer transfers significantly changed Ararat-Armenia’s game. But one signing truly had a huge impact on the championship season.

We are talking about Colombian midfielder Juan Balanta. Before moving to Armenia, he played for Torreense, where Manuel Tulipa had also worked.

Balanta became the type of player Ararat-Armenia had essentially lacked before. He is a strong defensive midfielder with an excellent passing range and the ability to control the game. In the first half of the season, Balanta was the heart of the team.

When he suffered an injury toward the end of the season, Ararat-Armenia no longer looked like a champion side. The team lost several important matches, including a heavy defeat to Noah. That spell only emphasized how important Balanta’s role was in the team’s structure.

Among the other transfers, Hugo Oliveira deserves a mention. He replaced Kamo Hovhannisyan very well and scored important goals, including several decisive ones. At the same time, Welton, despite receiving plenty of playing time, often underperformed — especially when he replaced Balanta.

Joao Lima and Rodrigo Ramos also failed to shine and left the team in the winter. However, the winter signings of Zidane Banjaqui and Alioune Ndour became very important. Without them, Ararat-Armenia would certainly not have survived the difficult second half of the season.

The main reasons behind Ararat-Armenia’s title

If we bring all the factors together, the formula for success becomes clear:

• A well-established and high-quality group of Armenian players;
• No major problems with the foreign-player limit;
• Rapid progress under Manuel Tulipa;
• Targeted summer reinforcements;
• Juan Balanta’s key role;
• Important winter signings in Zidane Banjaqui and Alioune Ndour;
• Stability throughout most of the championship campaign.

These were the main ingredients of Ararat-Armenia’s success in the 2025/26 season.

Why the title felt somewhat messy

At the same time, it would be wrong to say that Ararat-Armenia’s title was perfect. There is a feeling that the championship ended somewhat messily because of the team’s poor form in the final stretch of the season.

Several factors contributed to this: the heavy defeat to Noah, elimination in the Armenian Cup semifinals and the fact that the team almost let the title slip away in the match against BKMA in the penultimate round.

This impression was also strengthened by Noah’s excellent form in the second half of the season. Sandro Perkovic’s team gained momentum, looked powerful and kept the title race alive until the very end.

But championships are not won by the team that looks better during one particular spell. They are won by the team that proves more stable over the entire distance. In that sense, Ararat-Armenia took their chance.

Why Noah did not become champion

The competition in the Armenian Premier League this season was very interesting. Five clubs were fighting for high positions until the end, but only three teams were real title contenders: Ararat-Armenia, Noah and Pyunik.

Noah played in the league phase of the Conference League and reached the playoffs. This was a major achievement for the club, but at the same time it affected their domestic campaign.

Sandro Perkovic’s team had an unsuccessful first half of the season in the Armenian Premier League. Noah failed to cope with playing on two fronts. In addition, the club also changed its head coach in the summer, and the Croatian specialist did not immediately manage to build a stable game.

After the winter training camp, the situation improved significantly. Noah looked stronger, more stable and, in general, deserved a second consecutive league title. But too many points had been dropped in the first part of the season. Ararat-Armenia took advantage of that.

Why Pyunik did not win the title

Pyunik, under Artak Oseyan, looked very good at times. The team perhaps had the best defense in the league and the best goalkeeper. But things did not always work in attack, even with such strong forwards as Marius Noubissi, Mohamed Yansane and Eric Ocansey.

The main problem was dropped points against outsiders. In exactly these matches, the team’s attacking instability was especially costly.

In addition, Pyunik suffered more than anyone else because of the foreign-player limit. Most likely, this prevented the team from performing better during the season, although the campaign itself certainly cannot be called a failure.

Gevorg Tarakhchyan, Artak Dashyan, Edgar Malakyan and Robert Darbinyan often played in the starting lineup. At the moment, in terms of level and consistency, they probably do not fully meet the requirements of a club fighting for the title and belonging to the top five of the championship. But Pyunik effectively had no other options, especially considering Daniel Agbalyan’s injury.

At the same time, it was precisely because of the limit that Karlen Hovhannisyan, who returned from loan at BKMA, managed to break through. The 20-year-old midfielder became one of the discoveries of the season and received his first call-up to Armenia’s senior national team.

Ararat-Armenia’s leaders in the championship season

Let us highlight the season leaders among the champions across all competitions.

Most appearances:
Zhirayr Shaghoyan — 34 matches.

Most minutes played:
Joao Queiros — 2,972 minutes.

Top scorers:
Araik Eloyan, Artur Serobyan and Juan Balanta — 7 goals each.
Hugo Oliveira and Alioune Ndour — 6 goals each.

Top assist provider:
Zhirayr Shaghoyan — 8 assists.

Three assists each:
Edgar Grigoryan, Araik Eloyan, Kamo Hovhannisyan and Armen Ambartsumyan.

Team joker:
Paul Ayongo — 20 substitute appearances and 4 goals.

Youngest player to start a match:
Defender Vahe Petrosyan. He played one match at center-back against Van — 2:2. At the time, he was 20 years old.

Oldest players in the team:
Kamo Hovhannisyan, Karen Muradyan and Bruno Pinto — 33 years old each.

Average age of the team:
27.3 years.

Players called up to national teams:
11 footballers received call-ups to national teams at different times: 10 to Armenia, 1 to Guinea-Bissau and 1 to Kenya.

But dry statistics do not always fully reflect the influence of players on the team’s game. That is why it is worth separately naming the best player of the championship season.

Ararat-Armenia’s best player of the season

In a championship-winning team, it is natural to single out the best player of the season. But this is not easy: Ararat-Armenia did not have one consistent goalscorer who carried the team throughout the whole campaign. Different players stood out at different stages of the season.

Zhirayr Shaghoyan had a strong season, and his partnership with Edgar Grigoryan on the left flank decided the outcome of many matches. However, Shaghoyan was inconsistent and struggled at the end of autumn and the beginning of winter. During that period, he was not even called up to the Armenian national team for the match against Belarus.

Kamo Hovhannisyan showed leadership qualities, especially in big matches. But his replacement, Hugo Oliveira, was also good and scored several winning goals after coming off the bench. At the same time, the title of best player of the season should probably go to someone who was almost impossible to replace.

Another strong candidate is Artur Serobyan. He was good throughout the season, won competition against three foreign players at once and played a very important role in the team’s fast attacks. However, Artur too rarely produced decisive goal contributions in matches against top-five clubs.

In the end, we would choose Ararat-Armenia’s best player of the season from three footballers: Juan Balanta, Joao Queiros and Julio Bueno. Balanta was a key player in the first part of the season, but he missed the final stretch of the championship, as well as important matches in the Super Cup and Armenian Cup. If we compare the defenders Queiros and Bueno, the Portuguese player was more consistent over the whole distance.

That is why we choose Joao Queiros as Ararat-Armenia’s best player of the championship season. The 28-year-old Portuguese defender started attacks very well with his first pass, confidently joined the attack when needed, scored a crucial goal against BKMA in the penultimate round and remained reliable in defense for almost the entire season.

At the same time, if we assess only pure playing quality without considering consistency and the number of important matches played, the choice would be between Zhirayr Shaghoyan, Artur Serobyan and Juan Balanta. In that case, our preference would be Serobyan.

Championship season statistics

Ararat-Armenia collected 60 points in 27 rounds. On average, that is 2.2 points per match.

The team scored 50 goals and conceded 25.

In terms of goals scored, Ararat-Armenia had the second-best result in the league after Noah, who scored 61. In terms of goals conceded, the team finished third: only Pyunik, with 18 goals conceded, and Noah, with 19, allowed fewer.

These numbers clearly show the essence of the championship season. Ararat-Armenia were not absolutely the best team in every statistical category, but they proved to be the most balanced and stable side over the full distance.

Conclusion

Ararat-Armenia’s championship was the result of several factors at once. The team survived serious summer losses but kept its main advantage — a strong Armenian core. Manuel Tulipa quickly found the right balance, Juan Balanta became a key player in the first half of the season, and winter transfers helped the team get through a difficult final stretch.

Yes, the closing stage of the season was nervous and not entirely convincing. But Ararat-Armenia built an important advantage earlier than their rivals, took advantage of the mistakes made by Noah and Pyunik, and deservedly became Armenian champions in the 2025/26 season.