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Join us as we go two-by-two with football’s new biblical heroes. Just keep your hands off the ball, please.
Biblical Progression
(Xinhua/Li Ming via Getty Images)
Armenia’s FC Noah in Europe for first time — and face Chelsea
The beauty of UEFA’s Conference League is the way it has you reaching for the atlas — like the time pre-season with Leeds United sent us unplanned to Slovan Liberec in the Czech Republic, minus the necessary car insurance or permission to drive outside Germany.
Anyway, FC Noah might sound like an Old Testament nightclub but they are in fact a football club from Armenia, the landlocked country to the east of Turkey. The biblical reference is not accidental: the story of Noah’s Ark ends on Mount Ararat, a hill which once stood inside Armenia before borders moved. It’s the country’s national emblem.
Armenian representation in European club football is somewhere between fleeting and non-existent. FC Noah made Europe for the first time this season, in double quick time. The club were founded less than a decade ago, in 2017. A rebranded means they have been known as Noah for only five years.
It’s a fun story, but don’t mistake them as a novelty act. Simon Johnson has looked into FC Noah’s genesis (ho ho) and they’ve got plans. Tonight, they play Chelsea in the Conference League at Stamford Bridge, an open goal to David and Goliath references. It’ll be most people’s first glimpse of them — but probably not their last.
Mountain to climb
(Kirill Kudryavtsev/AFP via Getty Images)
The Conference League is the poor relation of UEFA’s two bigger competitions but FC Noah entry into it was no free pass.
They’re the first team to reach it by winning all four qualifying rounds (Armenia’s league is ranked too low to receive an automatic route into the full tournament), and beat Greece’s AEK Athens — a hardened outfit — along the way.
FC Noah against Chelsea should in theory be a mismatch. Chelsea’s transfer spending has cleared £1bn ($1.29bn) in the past two years. FC Noah’s players earn less than £5000 ($6,430) a week. Put bluntly, school-age academy prospects in the Premier League pull in more than that.
But FC Noah are clever. They made 16 cost-effective signings over the summer, including Iceland’s Gudmundur Thorarinsson who was once in MLS with New York City. They’ve picked up a Portuguese coach, Rui Mota, and they’ve tapped heavily into Sporting Lisbon, a club where Mota once worked as an analyst.
So far in Europe, they’re doing okay, with one win and one defeat from two games. Today is a fixture like no other for them — and the scramble for tickets is on.
‘Park the ark’
Everything about FC Noah is strategic. Their current stadium capacity is lower than 4,000 but they’ve got a new ground in the works. They’re ploughing cash into infrastructure. NYCFC’s facilities are pretty damn impressive but I took note of this comment from Thorarinsson about FC Noah’s proposed training complex: “This looks like it will be even better than (NYCFC). It’s going to be world-class.”
Chelsea away will be fun and games. Thorarinsson joked about “parking the ark” at Stamford Bridge (The Bible’s answer to defensively parking the bus), and no qualms if they do. But there’s a more serious point to this tale: that while the power of European football lies elsewhere, Europe’s biggest clubs don’t have a monopoly on ambition. And nor should they.
News Round-Up
- Danny Taylor reports today that England’s Football Association has opened a safeguarding inquiry into a leading Premier League figure who has previously been investigated by police over a number of sex offences.
- A Bayern Munich fan died after a medical emergency at their Champions League tie against Benfica last night. The supporter was rushed to hospital but passed away en route.
- Barcelona’s Pau Cubarsi needed 10 stitches after being booted in the face during their Champions League win at Red Star Belgrade last night. The photo (below) makes him look like he’s been in a back-alley brawl. He didn’t seem fussed.
Maresca’s Priorities
Enzo Maresca is unapologetic in saving Chelsea’s leading players for Sunday best. Cole Palmer hasn’t played in the Conference League since August. Neither has Moises Caicedo. Maresca knows which side his bread is buttered on, and how his priorities stack up.
Palmer, quite simply, has been electric since Chelsea first signed him. Maresca’s attempts to protect him for Premier League fixtures make sense, although the forward is an injury doubt for Sunday’s meeting with Arsenal. But the task of making Caicedo blossom proved trickier — and only now is his massive £115m ($149m) transfer fee looking less like a cross to bear.
Maresca’s preference for a box midfield — two holding midfielders behind two No 10s like Palmer — has teased more effectiveness and consistency out of Caicedo, who plainly, is far better than his first year after joining Chelsea from Brighton made him look. Ahmed Walid’s analysis of his improvement underlines that point — and speaks highly of Maresca’s tactical wit.
Penalties, Penalties, Penalties
Stand by for the most dozy concession of a penalty you’ve ever seen. And one you might feel like you’ve seen before.
Aston Villa were five minutes into the second half of their Champions League match at Club Bruges in Belgium when goalkeeper Emiliano Martinez played a short goal kick to Tyrone Mings — who promptly bent down and picked the ball up.
For UK:
Club Brugge are awarded a penalty after Tyrone Mings picks the ball up inside his own area 😳
📺 @tntsports & @discoveryplusUK pic.twitter.com/wpAqjMW8pn
— Football on TNT Sports (@footballontnt) November 6, 2024
For U.S:
A bizarre penalty incident as Aston Villa’s Tyrone Mings handles the ball in the area. But haven’t we seen this before? 🤔
Rules expert @ChristinaUnkel weighs in on the decision and why it differs from a similar situation in last year’s Arsenal-Bayern matchup 👀 pic.twitter.com/FsOtcLPrVC
— CBS Sports Golazo ⚽️ (@CBSSportsGolazo) November 6, 2024
Mings assumed play was not live but by the letter of the law, him grabbing the ball inside his own box constituted deliberate handball and a penalty. The rules were applied and Mings’ blunder led to a 1-0 defeat. Villa manager Unai Emery wasn’t blaming the officials. “It’s the biggest mistake we’ve made in my career as a coach,” he said. “It’s very, very strange.”
Wait a minute, though. Didn’t the same thing occur in a game between Arsenal and Bayern Munich last season? Indeed it did — but on that occasion, when Gabriel handled a goal kick from ‘keeper David Raya, the referee ignored his offence on the grounds that Bayern suffered no significant disadvantage to Bayern, and common sense should be applied. Sounds like inconsistency to me.
Arsenal weren’t so lucky last night. They lost 1-0 to Inter Milan after conceding a penalty for this handball…
…and were denied one of their own after Inter’s Yann Sommer went close to taking Mikel Merino’s head off. ‘Keepers challenge in the air like this a lot, and often get away with arriving late. But (letter of the law and all that), Sommer’s two-handed punch is a foul, every day of the week:
How Would Gyokeres Get On In PL?
Viktor Gyokeres to Manchester United would square an amusing circle. United’s sporting director is Dan Ashworth. Ashworth, in a previous life, was central in Brighton selling Gyokeres to Coventry City for £1m ($1.29m) in 2021. How the hell did that ever happen?
Gyokeres, 26, is more like a £100m ($129m) striker these days. And the more he scores for fun with Sporting Lisbon, the more he’s going to be floated as a potential United transfer target, especially since Sporting boss Ruben Amorim is days away from taking over at Old Trafford.
All the same, the question has to be asked: would Gyokeres flourish in the Premier League? It’s a higher standard than Portugal and one way in which recruitment often goes wrong is via somebody misjudging the step from one division to another. A big leap can find a player out.
There’s risk involved, particularly if Gyokeres is uber pricey, but Mark Carey’s tactical assessment of him is reassuring. And don’t forget: Leeds United tried to take him to the Premier League from Coventry in January 2023. My money would be on him smashing it.
Around The Athletic
Catch A Match (Times ET/UK)
Selected:
Europa League: Galatasaray vs Tottenham Hotspur, 12.45pm/5.45pm – Paramount+, Fubo/TNT Sports; Olympiacos vs Rangers, 12.45pm/5.45pm – CBS, Paramount+, Fubo/TNT Sports; Manchester United vs PAOK, 3pm/8pm – Paramount+/TNT Sports; Lazio vs Porto, 3pm/8pm – CBS, Paramount+, Fubo/TNT Sports.
Conference League: Shamrock Rovers vs The New Saints, 12.45pm/5.45pm – Paramount+/TNT Sports; APOEL vs Fiorentina, 3pm/8pm – Paramount+/TNT Sports; Chelsea vs FC Noah, 3pm/8pm – Paramount+/TNT Sports.
Championship: West Bromwich Albion vs Burnley, 3pm/8pm – Paramount+/Sky Sports.
(Top photo: Domenic Aquilina/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
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