Davit Alaverdyan, chief editor of Mediamax Media Company in Yerevan, said: “Although the club was founded in 2017, in 2022-23 it was completely transformed with a new owner and management, so in that sense it can really be considered new.
“Such a success is truly unprecedented.”
Former Portugal, Real Madrid and Barcelona star Figo seems an unlikely name to be linked to an Armenian club side but club owner Vardanyan said: “Luis Figo was one of the first to support my vision of building this project.
“He believed in the programme’s success and offered his willingness to assist in key areas. We are friends and often discuss the club’s development, with Figo providing valuable advice.
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“We have big plans with Figo, particularly in promoting Noah’s young talents abroad and enhancing the club’s international reputation.”
The club’s sudden rise and a nomadic history to date means their fanbase is still catching up. They have had several different stadiums, in capital Yerevan, plus Armavir and currently Abovyan.
Their European games are being played at the Republican Stadium in Yerevan, and they are building a new stadium in nearby city Echmiatsin.
“Until recently, the team did not have many fans, but success on the international stage has led to the number increasing with each game,” said journalist Alaverdyan.
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“A stadium for 20,000 people, as well as a football academy, is being built near Yerevan.”
And the biblical name of the club?
The Old Testament says Noah’s Ark landed on Mount Ararat – which is just over the border in modern Turkey and dominates the Yerevan horizon.
Armenia was the first country in the world to adopt Christianity as its official religion in the fourth century.
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“A significant part of Armenia is located in the Ararat Valley, so the themes of Ararat, Noah and his Ark have sacred meaning for Armenians,” said Alaverdyan.
Captain Hovhannes Hambardzumyan is one of their longest serving players, having joined in August 2023.
“Being part of Noah’s project is something special for all of us,” said the 34-year-old Armenia right-back.
“We are not just playing football; we are playing for our nation, our pride, our homeland, and our tricolour flag, striving to elevate the name of Noah in the world of football.”
Gainsborough Trinity’s tie at Harrogate Town and Kettering Town’s home match with Doncaster Rovers in the FA Cup second round will be broadcast live on BBC Two.
Seventh-tier Trinity are the lowest-ranked side left in the competition after they beat fellow Northern Premier League team Hednesford Town on penalties in the first round.
Kettering – leaders of the Southern League Premier Division Central – produced the biggest shock of the previous round by defeating League One Northampton Town.
Harrogate host Gainsborough on Friday, 29 November at 19:45 GMT, before Kettering and Doncaster meet on Sunday, 1 December at 12:00.
Colby Covington sees plenty of big fights ahead when he returns to action.
December will mark a year since Covington’s most recent fight, a loss to then-welterweight champion Leon Edwards in the main event of UFC 296. Since then, Covington has been relatively quiet, though he has spent much of 2024 campaigning for President Donald Trump. With Trump once again having been elected to office, Covington is free to focus on his own career.
And he already has a few names in mind, including top welterweight contender Jack Della Maddalena.
“We’ve been talking about this fight with Jack Della Maddalena,” Covington told Submission Radio (transcription via Denis Shkuratov). “I think it makes a lot of sense. He got a big win in my hometown in Miami last time he was out here so he has a little bit of a name out here. He’s undefeated. He’s hungry. He’s fearless. He’s an exciting fighter.
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“I think that’s a fight that the fans would be intrigued with. I think it’s a high-level fight. It’s a top contender fight that establishes who’s the next contender for the belt.”
Della Maddalena is one of the hottest names at 170 pounds, with seven straight wins to kick off his UFC career. Overall, he has won 17 straight fights after beginning his pro career 0-2. This past March, the Australian slugger defeated one-time UFC title challenger defeated one-time UFC title challenger Gilbert Burns by third-round knockout and he currently stands at No. 4 in the MMA Fighting Global Rankings.
While Covington is eager to climb back up the charts, he’s also entertaining grudge matches. One fighter who Covington has gone back and forth with in the media is lightweight contender Paddy Pimblett. If Pimblett wants to jump up in weight, Covington is eager to slap him back down.
“He’d never fight again,” Covington said. “It’d be the last fight that he’d ever have in the Octagon. I would beat him silly from pillar to post. I’d beat him so bad it’d be one of the worst beatings in UFC history. I don’t think the athletic commission would be able to sanction a fight for him ever again after the damage I would do to Paddy f*cking Pimblett. The guy’s an absolute joke and it’s just hilarious because last time I saw him on Fight Week, he’s walking down, literally walked by me, like, three times. Every time he puts his head straight down, doesn’t make any eye contact, but now he wants to talk a big game. So Paddy, if you’re really about that life, come see me. Come see the ‘King of Miami.’
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“Call [UFC executive] Hunter [Campbell]. You know what? You probably don’t even have the boss’s number. You probably have to go through, like, the matchmakers or something. Don’t worry, I’ll put in a call to the boss. We can get this fight going if you’re really about that. And you know what? More importantly, you don’t got to cut weight. I know you’re a big guy. You’re bigger than me anyways. So come up to welterweight, eat as much food as you want, and bring your A-game and pack a lunch because it’s going to be the last time you ever fight again.”
Long term, Covington still believes he can fight for UFC gold. Though Covington’s performance against Edwards was forgettable, he was previously part of two entertaining title fights with Kamaru Usman, and the urge to prove himself against the best remains.
He’s eager to fight undefeated welterweight Shavkat Rakhmonov, who is looking for a dance partner now after UFC champion Belal Muhammad was forced to withdraw from their UFC 310 main event meeting due to a toe infection. If Rakhmonov finds a new opponent for the Dec. 7 card, regardless of the result, Covington wants a piece of him.
“I think I can walk him down and pressure him and he’s not going to like my pressure,” Covington said of the Rakhmonov matchup. “He doesn’t do very well with southpaws. We saw how he did with the busboy, Geoff Neal, that was a very competitive fight. He hasn’t really fought a top, top contender yet. He’s fought some gatekeepers in the division, some some guys right on the cusp of the top 10, but he’s never fought a champion like me and a guy who’s just going to come at him for for five straight rounds and just walk him down.
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“So I think I match up well with him. He stands very tall. I don’t know, I don’t see anything special with him. You know, he has some good submissions, he’s slick, but that’s when he can control the wrestling. He’s not going to control the wrestling on me. I think I can beat him pretty easily and I think it’s a favorable fight. It’s a fight that I want in the future whether he wins or loses in December.”
Watch Covington’s interview with Submission Radio below.
MANCHESTER UNITED have added academy starlet Jayce Fitzgerald to their Europa League squad.
The Red Devils are set to welcome Greek side PAOK to Old Trafford this evening.
On September 4, United were required to submit their 25-man “List A” Europa League squad to Uefa.
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Throughout the group stage, however, further players can be be made eligible if they meet certain criteria.
Uefa rules state: “A player may be registered on List B if he is born on or after 1 January 2003 and has, since his 15th birthday, been eligible to play for the club concerned for any uninterrupted period of two years.
“Or a total of three consecutive years with a maximum of one loan period to a club from the same association for a period not longer than one year.”
Clubs have until midnight prior to matchday to add players to List B.
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With Fitzgerald, 17, fitting the bill, he has been added to United’s squad and will be eligible to feature this evening.
The academy starlet has been introduced to the Red Devils’ first team set-up since Ruud van Nistelrooy took caretaker charge.
He was an unused substitute as United beat Leicester 5-2 in the Carabao Cup, in what was Van Nistelrooy’s first game.
Aston Martin has got to the bottom of its troubled Brazilian Grand Prix that left Lance Stroll out on the formation lap and Fernando Alonso battling extreme bouncing.
The Silverstone-based team endured a hugely challenging race afternoon at Interlagos as Stroll spun into the wall on the formation lap after his rears unexpectedly locked, before he managed to beach himself in the gravel.
Then Alonso struggled throughout with similar rear locking issues plus excessive porpoising that left him struggling with back pain at the end, but he was determined to push on and see the chequered flag.
Speaking on the team radio at the time, Alonso, who finished 14th, admitted that something unusual was happening. “This bouncing is not normal,” he said.
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With no immediate explanation for what happened on both cars, Aston Martin has spent some time since returning to its factory trying to get a better comprehension of the factors at play.
It now suspects that the problems on both cars were triggered by a super nervous rear-end characteristic that had been introduced as a result of car changes made following the qualifying crashes the team suffered on Sunday morning.
Both Stroll and Alonso had hit the barriers in the wet qualifying session, damaging the Suzuka-concept specification floors the team had intended to run for the Interlagos event.
Lance Stroll, Aston Martin AMR24, crashes out
Photo by: Andrew Ferraro / Motorsport Images
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With no spares of that specification available, Aston Martin had to revert to a previous floor version – which was the one it first introduced at the Hungarian GP.
Normally teams cannot change specs between qualifying and the race, as that is a breach of parc ferme regulations and mandates a pitlane start.
However, things are different on a sprint race weekend when allowances are made if there is a shortage of spare parts.
Article 40.4 says at sprint weekends teams can change specification if they can “demonstrate there is a shortage of parts, and provided that the replacement part is of a specification that has been previously used in a qualifying session or a race”.
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It was this rule that Mercedes used at the United States GP to allow George Russell to go back to an older specification of floor following his qualifying crash.
The complication for Aston Martin, however, was that the change of floor had to be made without it being able to alter the mechanical set-up around it – as suspension settings are totally fixed in parc ferme.
Fernando Alonso, Aston Martin AMR24
Photo by: Andrew Ferraro / Motorsport Images
So on a weekend where teams were battling the problems of excessive bumps on the Interlagos track, plus tricky weather conditions, the end result was a car whose aero platform and mechanical settings did not match up.
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Speaking about what Aston Martin has found out since Brazil, team principal Mike Krack thinks a combination of elements came together to leave both its drivers with a car that was ultra nervous.
“It was clear that both drivers were battling a car that was incredibly difficult to drive during Sunday’s race,” he said. “Our post-weekend analysis has highlighted several factors that explain this.
“Following both car’s accidents in qualifying, we had to replace a lot of components with a different specification due to availabilities at the end of a triple-header. This is allowed by the Sprint Event regulations, and you declare your shortages and replacement options to the FIA before the event.
“[But] you aren’t allowed to change the mechanical set-up of the cars. This meant we could neither check nor adjust the set-up of the cars, which negatively affected aerodynamic behaviour and performance.
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“Add in treacherous wet conditions, along with an incredibly bumpy track, and you begin to understand that both drivers had the odds stacked against them.
“Both cars were highly susceptible to wheel-locking, and we can see in the data that this is what caused the issues for both Lance and Fernando.”
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Aston Martin has been experimenting with its floor choices in recent races, with an upgrade it delivered for Austin not delivering the step forward hoped for.
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It reverted to the Suzuka spec from Mexico, and may commit to the Budapest version for the next high-speed races in Las Vegas and Qatar.
England’s Tommy Fleetwood shot a 10-under-par 62 to equal the course record and lead by one shot after the opening round of the Abu Dhabi Championship.
Dane Thorbjorn Olesen and American Johannes Veerman share second place, with English trio Tyrrell Hatton, Paul Waring and Laurie Canter and Italian Francesco Laporta one stroke further back.
Scotland’s Bob MacIntyre went round in seven under, England’s Alex Fitzpatrick and Matthew Jordan six under and Northern Ireland’s Rory McIlroy five under.
Fleetwood said: “When you shoot a 62, obviously everything is going to have gone very, very well.”
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McIlroy needs to finish in the top two at Yas Links to win a sixth Race to Dubai title, before the final event of the European Tour season at the World Tour Championship in Dubai next week.
McIlroy, who has spent three weeks in a studio hitting balls at a screen with a modified swing, said his performance on day one of the tournament “felt OK”.
“I probably wasn’t as imaginative out there – I was hitting very straight shots.”
ONE Championship creates more depth in its big January event by adding the return of champion Fabricio Andrade.
At ONE 170 on Jan. 24 at Impact Arena in Bangkok, Thailand, Andrade (9-2) will defend his bantamweight (145 pounds) title for the first time against a familiar opponent, Won Il Kwon. The promotion directly confirmed the news of the matchup with MMA Junkie.
The event is an Asian primetime card starting at 7:30 a.m. ET.
Andrade achieved his crowning moment by defeating John Lineker at ONE on Prime Video 7 in February 2023. Lineker’s corner stopped the fight after the conclusion of Round 4 due to damage to their fighter’s eye.
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Since his big moment, Andrade, 27, has only appeared once in a kickboxing bout against Jonathan Haggerty. It was an attempt to become a two-sport champion in ONE, but things did not go his way as he was stopped in the second round. Now, he’s geared up for his return to MMA competition and will look to defend his title for the first time against Kwon (14-4), who he previously faced and finished.
The first meeting took place at ONE Championship 158 in June 2022. Andrade finished the fight with a liver kick in the first round, which led to back-to-back appearances against Lineker.
Kwon has not lost since. The 29-year-old South Korean fighter has gone on a tear, finishing three consecutive opponents. His most recent appearance was a second-round ground and pounding of Shinechagtga Zoltsetseg in January, which has set up his title opportunity.
With the addition, the ONE 170 lineup includes:
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Fabricio Andrade vs. Won Il Kwon – for bantamweight title
Tawanchai PK Saenchai vs. Superbon Banchamek – for muay Thai lightweight title
Superlek Kiatmoo9 vs. Nico Carrillo – for muay Thai featherweight title
Saeksan Or Kwanmuang vs. Soe Lin Oo
Suriyanlek Por Yenying vs. Thant Zin
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