Armenia Loses EURO 2020 Soccer Qualifying Game to Italy

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YEREVAN – Armenia hosted Italy’s national team in Yerevan for the UEFA EURO 2020 qualifier game. All the tickets for Vazgen Sarkissian stadium were sold out, Armenpress reported. “We expect a fully packed stadium in the match against Italy. We thank all our loyal fans ahead of this very important match,” Armenia’s Football Federation announced in the run up to the game. 

UEFA’s President Alexander Cheferin, who is visiting Armenia this days, was following the game at the stadium. Prior to that he had a working meeting with Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan. 
Henrikh Mkhitarian, formerly Arsenal’s midfielder, who has recently moved from British Arsenal to Italy’s Roma FC played for Armenia. UEFA’s site reported: “As always, all eyes will be on Mkhitaryan for Armenia but don’t forget his attacking partners.”
 

Armenia’s team defeated Lichtenstein and Greece but lost to Bosnia-Herzegovina and Finland in the four previous qualifying games and prior to this game ran third in the Group J (see the screenshot below).The Armenian Mirror Spectator will provided live updates from the game, which started at 12 p.m. EST.  Armenia’s Karapetyan scored a goal at the 11th minute. After Armenia led for about 15 minutes, Italy leveled the game, with its team becoming more dominant.

During the second half of the game, the Armenian team was playing with one less player, as Karapetyan received a red card at the end of the end of the first half and had to leave the game. At the 75th minute of the game Armenia and Italy remained tied 1:1 but then Italy scored two more goals, to make it 1:3 and secure the victory.

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