Sargis Hovsepyan - Club Career

Club Career

Sargis Hovsepyan played his first match at the professional level when he was seventeen. It was in the Soviet Top League with second league club Malatia Yerevan. The following year, the Soviet Union collapsed. Sargis had then started competing in the Armenian Premier League of his now independent homeland. Hovsepyan first joined Lori Vanadzor in 1991 and was transferred to Pyunik Yerevan the following year. He immediately became the first star of the country. In 1992, he became the first player to be named Armenian Footballer of the Year. In the same year he made his debut for the national team. Hovsepyan was named Armenian Footballer of the Year again for 1995, becoming the first player to receive the award twice.

Hovsepyan was switched clubs in 1997 to 1998 and spent the next part of his club career in Russia. Anatoliy Byshovets had acquired Hovsepyan and took him into Zenit St. Petersburg. Zenit coach Anatoli Davydov later believed Hovsepyan to be suited for right-back. In this position, Sargis was so good that by the end of the season in 1999, the leaders of the club called him the best player on the team. The first season Hovsepyan joined them, Zenit won the Russian Cup 1998–99, the Russian Cup in history. The categorically refused to sell any kind. Hovsepyan began to receive the interest of CSKA Moscow and Lokomotiv Moscow.

However, Yuri Morozov, the next coach of St. Petersburg, had decided not to use Hovsepyan for any useful positions. And thus he unwittingly provoked the subsequent parting player with the club. No player in the new center of defense look convincing. Suffice it to say that in the list of 33 best for the season of 2002, Hovsepyan was in second place - just after Sergei Ignashevich. But in just a couple of months, it turned out that without Hovsepyan in Zenit, the defense was superfluous. In the football club, tactical revolution broke out. The team became the defensive line, and the specialty of the last defender suddenly lost its relevance.

Vlastimil Petržela, who brought St. Petersburg advanced developments, claimed the Armenian defender couldn't do their plays. Sargis was unable to fit into the new tactical realities. "Hovsepyan did blunders, played frankly bad. But the 'zone' is not understood - man all his life playing personal, and in thirty years to relearn hard" said Vyacheslav Malafeev. This does not provide an understanding of why the coach did not use the defense in a different role, on the flank. Petrzhela then explained that Hovsepyan lacked speed. Adoption of a strange, given that it is this quality that has always been one of the main advantages of the player. Apparently, the defender simply agreed whatever the coach felt, and in the summer of 2003, Hovsepyan left Zenit and was forced on the transfer list. A couple of years later, Petrzhela, watching from St. Petersburg, had another defender, Daniel Kiritse, who wished him not to get lost in football, as Hovsepyan. From the present day, farewell funny. Because the "lost" Sargis ten years has been claimed in the big football, and the pan coach after the Zenit has had it once quickly. Play the game in 2003 at the club Torpedo-Metallurg, Hovsepyan returned to Pyunik and left from Russia. He won a lot of national trophies in 2008 and won the Armenian Footballer of the Year award for a third time in 2008. He is the first player to win the award three times, a feat that has only been matched by Henrikh Mkhitaryan.

In the match of the 1st round of the 2010 Armenian Premier League, Sargis Hovsepyan had his 500th match in meetings, becoming the second player of Armenia who overcame the barrier of 500 matches. This match could mark Hovsepyan scoring a goal, but could not do to a penalty.

On May 10, 2010, winning in Pyunik the final match of the Armenian Cup against Banants, he became the oldest player in the history of the Armenian football to win the Cup. On that day, Hovsepyan was 37 years and 189 days. This figure surpassed the previous one, which was owned by Karen Simonyan, who won the Cup in 36 years and 336 days (2007). Hovsepyan also owns another cup record. In total he had in this tournament 62 games.

Hovsepyan has been on the winning team of the Armenian Premier League for nine seasons, the most of any player in the history of the League.

Sargis Hovsepyan retired as a football player in 2012. On this occasion, the former captain of Pyunik and the national team made a special appeal to the entire football community, in which he stated that, in his opinion, it is time to hang up his boots.