The huge, proud and always covered in snow and ice, Mount Ararat is everything to Armenians - a symbol of the country, even though it has been in Turkey since 1915. It was in some way that influenced the naming of Buducnost's first European rival this summer.
Noa from Armavir, a city about forty kilometers from Ararat, will welcome the Montenegrin champion on Tuesday in the first match of the 1st round of Champions League qualifying, and if you don't know much about this club, then that's not surprising because it is a young club.
It was founded in 2017 as Artsakh, and then just two years later it got a new owner and a new name. The club took over Karen Abrahamjan, a general and former Minister of Defense, so Noah emerged in Armenia, after Noah and his ark, which, according to the Bible, stopped right on the peaks of this mountain after the flood.
So Noah began to sail under a new name and very quickly conquered many rough seas.
The first trophy arrived in 2020, it was the Cup, and the same year the domestic Super Cup. The team from Armavir confirmed its dominance in Armenia in the recently concluded season when it became champion for the first time, and completed the double crown with another triumph in the Cup.
Armenia already knows the power of Noah, and Europe got to know the new club last season. And in a great way.
European charm
The team then led by a Portuguese expert Rui Mota shined through the hellish road of qualifying for the Conference League, where they overcame each of the four obstacles - Shkendija, Sliema, AEK Athens and Ružomberok. The group stage of the UEFA competition has arrived in Armenia.
Noa did not disappoint there either, even though they were defeated 8:0 by Chelsea, but who could have imagined a few years ago that this club would play against the Premier League giants.
In the end, they finished the group stage with four points - a win over Mlada Boleslav and a draw with Vikingur.
The Portuguese is the biggest danger
Rui Mota left this summer, took over Ludogorec, and was replaced by Sandro Perkovic, a Croatian expert who finished last season from Fabio Cannavaro took over Dinamo from Zagreb. And in the end he looked back at the Montenegrin expert Radomir Đalović in Rijeka.
The future was among the seeds in the draw in Nyon, but it seems that they have drawn the toughest possible opponent in this tier of the Champions League. The Nou is full of internationals, with the Portuguese leading the way, but there are also players from Brazil, the Netherlands, Croatia, from the African and Asian continents...
Of course, there are also home players, but the biggest threat to Buducnost's goal will be Gonzalo Gregory.
The Portuguese, who played for Pakos Ferreira and Leiria in his homeland, among others, and before that for Dinamo Bucharest, was the top scorer in the domestic championship last season, while he scored six times in the Conference League.
Noah's Ark wants to sail the European seas this season too - can Buducnost sink it?
Bonus video:
