In the second leg of the 2025/26 Conference League qualifying round, Pyunik played against ETO Győr in Hungary.

The 2:1 victory in the first leg left Pyunik a good chance to advance to the next round, although as the Yerevan match had shown, Győr was a rather strong opponent, and, especially, could cause great inconvenience to our team at home. And so it happened.

Yeghishe Melikyan left the starting lineup of Pyunik unchanged, but our team suffered a significant loss before the second leg. One of the team's leaders, Yusuf Otubanjo, had left Pyunik, and he, naturally, did not travel to Hungary with the team. Daniel Aghbalyan was also absent from our team's roster due to documentary issues.

The match began with fierce attacks by the home team, who, with the great support of their own fans, acted quickly and freely.

Already in the 16th minute, after a pass from Rajmund Toth from the right wing, Nadir Benbouali won the fight with Filipe Almeida and opened the score with a header from close range. The total score of the confrontation was tied.

Even after scoring a goal, the Győr players continued to hold the initiative and in the first half they had two or three more real scoring opportunities, but Henry Avagyan was at his height.

In the 31st minute, the referee of the match representing Kosovo, Mervan Bejtullahu, stood out with his biased approach. Our team's forward Marius Noubissi was rushing forward with the ball when our two players were tet-a-tet with two players of Győr in the opponent’s half-field, but the opponent's player Miljan Krpic, who had already received a yellow card, imperceptibly touched our forward's leg from behind and interrupted Pyunik’s dangerous attack.

Strangely enough, the referee restricted awarding only a free kick. In case of such fouls, the referee was obliged to show the Győr player a second yellow card and remove him from the field. The coaching staff of Pyunik also expressed its dissatisfaction with the episode, for which our team's head coach Yeghishe Melikyan received a warning.

In the first half, our team created the only real scoring opportunity only in the first minute of added time, when, as a result of a quick counterattack, Marius Noubissi moved forward through the center, approached Győr’s penalty area but after his shot, the opponent’s goalkeeper Samuel Petras saved his team. Moreover, the Cameroonian striker could have passed the ball to Matas Vareika, who was in a more convenient position, but tried to finish the attack on his own.

After the break, Győr was much more ahead of us and created threatening moments one after another near our team’s goal. In one of the episodes, the ball was deflected off the goalpost of our team, and in some cases, Henry Avagyan again shone with his reliable play.

Our team started playing more actively when Karlen Hovhannisyan and the team’s newcomer Eric Okansey came on as substitutes, giving some freshness to Pyunik’s actions.

In the 68th minute, as a result of Okansey’s and Noubissi’s cooperation, the latter approached Győr’s penalty area at high speed and after his shot, the ball hit the vertical goalpost and went out of the pitch.

Just a minute later, Győr decided to punish us: team captain Paul Anton sent the ball from the right wing into our team’s penalty area, where the same Nadir Benbouali, defeating Aleksandar Miljkovic in an aerial battle, made the score 2:0 again with a header.

Fortunately, in the 82nd minute, Pyunik managed to reduce the score difference and return the intrigue of the confrontation. Substitute Mikhail Kovalenko passed the ball from the right wing to Marius Noubissi, who was standing on a guard in the penalty area and passed the ball back with his heel and Eric Okansey immediately completed the attack - 2:1. The Ghanaian footballer marked his debut in Pyunik with a goal.

Encouraged by the goal scored, a few minutes later our team could have scored the second one, when Marius Noubissi, playing a wall with Eric Okanssey, broke into the opponent’s penalty area but after his powerful shot, Petras saved his team from a sudden goal. It’s difficult to say how the confrontation would have ended if our team had succeeded in that episode.

Unfortunately, two minutes later, when the last minute of the regular time was already underway, the home team managed to score the third goal they needed and put an end to all the hopes of Pyunik. Paul Anton passed the ball with a corner kick to our team’s penalty area and there, in a turmoil, Daniel Shteful hit the ball right into our goal - 3:1.

Immediately after the goal conceded, Yeghishe Melikyan sent forward Sargis Metoyan onto the pitch with the last hope of saving the game, and the latter could have become a hero seconds after, but, when appearing in front of the opponent’s goalkeeper, he shot widely, losing a great opportunity.

In the last minute of added time, after a corner kick taken by Xavi Moreno, Mikhail Kovalenko’s header went a little too high. That was our team’s last chance in that game.

Pyunik lost 1:3 (total score of both legs 3:4) and ended their performance in the current Conference League.