On July 6, Pyunik is playing with one of the main teams in the history of Georgian football, Torpedo Kutaisi!
The club was founded in 1946. In Soviet times, the team mainly played in the second strongest division of the USSR. It played in the Soviet Union Premier League during the 60s, in the 1982 and 1985 seasons. In the 70s, forward Ramaz Shengelia, who was named the best footballer of the Georgian SSR, played for Torpedo. The club's home stadium now bears his name. Of all Georgian teams, only Torpedo Kutaisi and Dynamo Tbilisi played in the main division of the USSR for more than one season.
In the independent Georgian championship, the team is on the second position with the number of trophies won. In the first half of the 90s, Torpedo won bronze medal three times, and from the end of the decade to 2005, it became the leader of the championship. During this period, the club won the tournament three times and took second place three times, and besides, it reached the final of the Georgian Cup five times and won the trophy twice. At the beginning of the century, most of the players in the domestic championship in the national team played for Torpedo.
Despite several outstanding seasons, in July 2005 the club faced financial problems. In 2007, Torpedo left the Premier league, but, returning in 2010, remained a regular participant in the main championship. In 2016, the team won the Georgian Cup, the first trophy in 14 years, and in 2017, they got back the champion title of the national championship. Besides, in the 2010s, Torpedo won the bronze three times.
The team is now managed by Steve King, who coached Blackburn Rovers in the English Premier League and worked as an assistant at Fulham and Real Sociedad. At the moment, Torpedo places 6th in the championship. The most productive player of the season is Giorgi Arabidze, who scored 3 goals and 3 assists in 13 games.
During its history, Torpedo has played with several Armenian clubs in various tournaments. The team played 20 matches with Ararat in the USSR Premier League, won 5 victories and lost 10 times. In the second division of the USSR, Torpedo played with Kotayk (1 win in 2 matches). In the 1998 Intertotto Cup, the rival of the Kutaisi club in the first round was Erebuni. Then the Georgians confidently won the two-leg confrontation with a total score of 7:1.
The team from Kutaisi has never met Pyunik before. But Vakhtang Hakobyan, who played for our club in the 2003/2004 season, played in Torpedo.
More recently, on July 4, 2023, the team played a match for the third place in the Georgian Super Cup and won.
We congratulate Torpedo and are looking forward to a friendly match with them!
