The Armenia national football team ranks last in Europe and second-to-last in the world in terms of the number of players aged 26–29.
The CIES Football Observatory conducted a demographic analysis of national teams in 2024.
The average age of Armenia's national team players in 2024 was 27.22 years, which is the average for Europe. At the same time, the Armenian team is younger than all of its future opponents except for Ireland: Georgia (27.58), Hungary (27.89), Denmark (28.10), Portugal (27.40), while Ireland’s average is 26.30.
However, the most interesting part of the analysis is the age structure of the team. Armenia actively uses young players but hardly relies on players aged 26–29, the period considered the peak of a player’s career.
In terms of players under 21 years old (19.1%), Armenia ranks fifth in Europe, behind Northern Ireland (39.9%), Estonia (28.2%), San Marino (24.6%), and Liechtenstein (19.7%). For comparison, in most European national teams, this figure is below 5%, while Armenia’s closest neighbor, Georgia, has 0%.
At the same time, the share of players aged 26–29, who are usually the most productive for national teams, is extremely low in Armenia. Only 6.8% of the national team players fall into this age group, which essentially means just one player—Artur Miranyan. This is the worst figure in Europe and the second-worst in the world after Samoa. For comparison, in Iceland—the closest European country with a low rate—the share of such players is 14.3%. In most other European teams, players in this age range form the core of the squad: in Spain, it’s 41.4%, and in Germany, 41.0%.
This statistic highlights serious gaps in the development of players born in the late 1990s, a period when Armenia was experiencing significant emigration.
Nevertheless, the situation may change in the coming years. Already, 35.9% of Armenia’s national team players are aged 22–25, and they are expected to become the core of the team soon.
If we recall the best times of Armenia’s national team (for example, the 4–0 victory over Denmark), its leaders were then in the 25–30 age group. It’s likely that a return to strong results will be possible when this new generation reaches its peak.
