Ararat-Armenia: how strong are the champions before the new season?
The 2026/27 Armenian Premier League season kicks off on July 31. Before then, we are going club by club: last season's numbers, playing style, likely core, summer transfers, title outlook, and Fantasy value.
We start with the champions.
The title, in numbers
Ararat-Armenia won the league with 60 points. The strange part is that, by most underlying team numbers, Noah looked like the strongest side in the country.
Noah scored more goals, conceded fewer, and finished with a +42 goal difference. Ararat-Armenia's goal difference was +25. The trophy still went to Ararat-Armenia.
Ararat-Armenia
Noah
Pyunik
Alashkert
Urartu
Van
BKMA
Gandzasar
Ararat
ShirakThe title race, round by round
Only seven points separated first from fourth. The title was effectively settled in the final rounds. In Round 25, Ararat-Armenia lost 0:4 at home to Noah, and suddenly the race had oxygen again.
How did they win it? Big games.
Split the season into two buckets: matches against the top five and matches against the bottom five.
Against the top five, Ararat-Armenia had the best record in the league: 21 points from 12 matches. Noah took 16 from the same fixtures. That is where the final four-point gap was created.
Against the bottom five, Noah were actually more efficient. It just was not enough.
The other signature detail: 11 of Ararat-Armenia's 18 wins came by one goal. They were rarely spectacular. They were stubborn, mature, and ruthless enough in the close games.
Lowest star-dependence in the league
Urartu had the league's top scorer, Bruno Michel, with 19 goals. They finished fifth. His goals made up 44% of the team's total.
Ararat-Armenia's top scorer was Artur Serobyan with seven goals, only 14% of the team's total. Twelve different players scored.
That balance is both a strength and a limitation. Losing one player does not collapse the team. But there also was no obvious superstar who could break a deadlocked match alone.
Style and core XI
Tulipa's Ararat-Armenia played a 4-3-3 with inverted wingers and a midfield three where Balanta was the highest of the trio. The big takeaway from the minutes is continuity: the most-used XI played 69% of the available minutes.
Three notes from that core:
Queirós, Grigoryan and Bueno formed the main defensive base and played 6171 minutes between them. Queirós has already gone.
The midfield was built for balance rather than output. Muradyan and Tera combined for 0 goals and 1 assist in 2856 minutes. The creative burden sat with Balanta and the wide players.
Most efficient attackers: goals + assists per 90
Ndour's rate is eye-catching: five goals in 447 minutes, or 1.01 goals plus assists per 90. The catch is that he started only twice.
Oliveira is the more interesting Fantasy case. He is a defender, scored six goals, and no other defender in the league scored more than three.
Transfers: rebuilding the core
Ararat-Armenia lost their two most-used players: Queirós and Pinto. That means the goalkeeper and the heart of defence are changing at the same time.
from Santa Clara · €800k · direct Pinto replacement
free agent · €600k centre-back
from Ethnikos Achna · centre-back
from Penafiel · left-back
from Nancy · €500k defender
from Persijap · 30 matches, 10 goals, 3 assists last season
from Alverca · experienced striker
back from loan
back from BKMA loan · 1560 minutes
back from Noah loan
free agent · 2255 minutes · 10 clean sheets · 93 Fantasy points
to Leca · starting goalkeeper · 8 clean sheets
loan ended · 1053 minutes
to Van · 968 minutes · 11 starts
to Alashkert · direct rival
to Raja Casablanca · loan ended
to Syunik · no minutes last season
to Ararat Yerevan · no minutes last season
The outgoing group played 6451 minutes last season, including 3965 minutes from regular starters. The incoming group is more experienced, but almost entirely new to the Armenian league.
The attacking moves are especially clear: França is 31, Sandro Lima is 35. Ararat-Armenia needed a finisher. Their top scorer had only seven league goals.
Prediction: 2nd place
Our call: Ararat-Armenia will finish second.
The first reason is simple: Noah were probably the better team last season. Best attack, best defence, best goal difference. They lost the title because they underperformed in the top-five mini-league, not because the squad lacked quality.
Second: squad value. Nine of the ten most valuable players in the league are at Noah.
Third, the core has changed. New goalkeeper, new centre-backs, new forwards, all without Armenian league minutes. Last season's 60 points were built on continuity. That has to be rebuilt.
Fourth, Europe.
That was a strong opening: 2:0 at home against Latvia's champions, with goals from a defender and a new striker.
But if Ararat-Armenia beat Riga and keep moving through qualifying, autumn becomes a Thursday-Sunday season. Noah paid that price last year. While they were playing Conference League football, they took only 24 points from the first 15 league rounds; Ararat-Armenia took 34. Once Europe ended, Noah finished stronger, but the early gap was already too large.
Now that calendar pressure may move to the champions.
Fantasy: which three should you take?
In APL Games Fantasy, the budget is 100.0m, the squad has 15 players, and you can select a maximum of three from one club.
So the useful question is not "who is good?" It is: "which three are worth using an Ararat-Armenia slot on?"
Price list (not final; prices can change before launch)
Points per million
The value is obvious: Ararat-Armenia are a defensive Fantasy team first.
The foreign-player rule matters
APL match squads must include at least nine Armenia-trained players, and at least three must be on the pitch at all times. In practice, that caps the number of foreign players on the pitch at eight.
That gives Armenian players a structural minutes floor. Eloyan, Serobyan, Shaghoyan, Hovhannisyan and Grigoryan are all helped by that rule. Foreign players, including Oliveira, Ndour and França, have a tighter path to secure minutes.
Oliveira is the premium angle
Oliveira scored six goals as a defender and starts at 7.0. He also played central midfield against Riga, scored from there, and still keeps defender scoring in Fantasy. If that role continues, it is a rare points edge: defender points for attacking positions.
The risk: a rebuilt defence may keep fewer clean sheets, and his position could eventually be reviewed if the midfield role becomes permanent.
Shaghoyan or Serobyan?
Shaghoyan has the full-season edge: more G+A and better per-90 output. But the split matters. All eight of his assists came before Round 15, and his second half was quiet. Serobyan finished stronger, with four goals in the final 12 rounds and more stable minutes.
- Shaghoyan (10.0): creativity, assist volume, higher ceiling if he starts fast again.
- Serobyan (10.5): goals, form, steadier role, better finish to last season.
What to avoid early
Bottom line
Ararat-Armenia were not clearly the best team in the league by raw numbers. They were the most stable: 30 points home, 30 away, 11 one-goal wins, 12 different scorers, and the best top-five record in the division.
That stability has been disturbed. The core is changing, the new players come from outside the league, and Europe could add a heavy autumn schedule. That is enough for us to put them second, even if the title race can easily swing on a four-point margin.
Next up: Noah, the team with the best numbers, the Armenian Cup, and a league title they will feel they should have won.