SPORT: ARMENIA END EURO-2008 CAMPAIGN, AWAIT DRAW FOR WORLD CUP QUALIFICATIONS

Football Euro-2008: Armenia looked a better side hosting Kazakhstan on Wednesday but let the visitors capitalize on their mistakes to take all three points from Yerevan. The 0-1 midweek defeat at Republican Stadium that followed an away defeat with the same score from Portugal at the weekend prevented Armenia from taking the sixth spot in the eight-nation Euro-2008 qualifying group.
Dislodged by the Kazakhs, Armenia finished only seventh with nine points in 12 matches, ahead of Azerbaijan, with five points. Poland and Portugal captured the two qualification slots to progress to the finals due in Austria/Switzerland next year.
Armenia’s latest qualifying campaign proved different from their previous six in more ways than one as despite a poor finish with three straight defeats in the end it has admittedly revealed the best ever football shown by Armenians since independence.
No surprise, though, as no one had doubted the season would be different long before the first matches were played.
The thing is that it started for Armenia with a draw that put it and Azerbaijan in the same group. The blind draw caused a real ‘football form race’ by both neighboring nations that warred in 1991-1994 and are still divided by military trenches.
Armenia invited Scottish manager Ian Porterfield as a replacement for Dutchman Henk Wisman, who overtly propagandized a defensive football on and off the pitch, something that could hardly suit numerous Armenia fans and the country’s odious football chief who had raised the stakes by vowing to resign unless Armenia managed to beat Azerbaijan.
An enthusiastic spell of good performance and results came in the middle of the ‘highly motivated’ campaign when Armenia disposed of Kazakhstan and Poland and continued with inspired draws against Portugal and Serbia even after European football’s governing body, UEFA, made a decision to cancel the September 2007 fixtures between Azerbaijan and Armenia citing security concerns. (Considering the draw with Finland in 2006, Armenia managed to grab points from all the four top finishers – an unprecedented result for Armenia in qualification campaigns.)
Armenia played the last four matches of the Euro-2008 campaign without Porterfield, who died of cancer last September. While the team managed to retain the high performance level and showed attack-minded football since the death of their coach, they didn’t score in any of the remaining matches.
The Armenian Football Federation promised last week it would name a new coach after Armenia finished the campaign.
Meanwhile, a draw for World Cup 2010 in South Africa is scheduled in Durban on November 25. Fifty-three European nations will be divided into nine qualifying groups, with 13 qualification slots available. Armenia, currently ranked 39 in Europe, is in the fifth pool of nations.
Visiting Yerevan in October UEFA and FIFA chiefs Michel Platini and Sepp Blatter assured the Armenian federation that draws for the qualification campaigns in the future would ensure Armenia and Azerbaijan are not drawn in the same groups again.
Under-21: Armenia still hope to qualify for playoffs in the UEFA European Under-21 Championship after a 4-1 victory over Liechtenstein in an away match this week, www.uefa.com reports. To qualify, Armenia now must win their remaining two games against Turkey and hope other results go their way.
Banants for CIS Cup: For the second time in a row Armenia’s runner-up FC Banants Yerevan will be a replacement for champion FC Pyunik in the CIS and Baltic States Champions’ Cup in St. Petersburg, Russia, early next year, Regnum.ru reports quoting the press service of the football club.
FC Pyunik were indefinitely banned from participating in the tournament in 2006 after they refused to play Azerbaijan’s champion Neftchi Baku in the semi-final citing insufficient security measures.
Banants’ rivals in Group D are the champions of Uzbekistan, Belarus and Ukraine. The tournament will run from January 19 through January 27.
Boxing
Fighting the Filipinos: Australia-based professional boxer Vic Darchinyan, 29-1, 23 KO’s, will fight Filipino Z Gorres in an eliminator for the IBF super flyweight boxing world title after an agreement reached between the two parties’ promoters.
The bout is due to take place in the Philippines on February 2, 2008, Regnum news agency and Armenian Public Radio report.
The winner of the fight will gain the right to challenge current titleholder Dmitri Kirillov from Russia.
The upcoming fight will extend the recent rivalry between the 31-year-old Armenian and professional boxers representing the Philippines.
IBF fifth ranked Darchinyan won the IBO Austral-Asia super flyweight title in October with a 12th round stoppage of Filipino Federico Catubay after losing his IBF and IBO flyweight crowns to another Filipino Nonito Donaire in his previous contest.
Chess
Armenian GM Tigran L. Petrosyan won first prize in an online event organized by the Internet Chess Club (ICC) and got the right to take part in the Gibraltar Chess Festival. Petrosyan first had a success in the preliminary tournament and then had victories over Illingworth (Australia) - 3:0, GM Komliakov (Moldova) – 2.5:0.5, IM Safarli (Azerbaijan) – 2.5:0.5 and over GM Guseinov (Azerbaijan) – 3.5:0.5 in the final match.
Third place went to GM Zaven Andreasyan. IM Krikor-Sevag Mekhitarian (Brazil) also played successfully and became one of the 16 players of the finals.
A total of 1,560 chess players took part in the tournament where participants were given 3 minutes for each game.
Meanwhile, Armenian GMs Levon Aronyan, Vladimir Hakobyan, Zaven Andreasyan and Varuzhan Hakobyan are in Khanty-Mansiysk to take part in the World Chess Cup held in this Russian city on November 24-December 18.
One hundred twenty eight chess players from around the world will compete in a seven-round knockout-system tournament, with each match including two games. The last round (or the final match) will consist of four games.
In the first round on Saturday, defending World Cup holder Aronyan plays Juan Pablo Hobaica (Argentina). The opponents of Vladimir Hakobyan, Zaven Andraesyan and Varuzhan Hakobyan are Anton Filippov (Uzbekistan), Alexander Onischuk (USA), and Michael Roiz (Israel), respectively. (Source: www.armchess.am)

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