The one-month training camp of Pyunik is coming to an end. During this period, our team competed with the champions and cup holders of different countries. The Pomegranates will conclude the control matches with a match against Alexandria representing Ukraine.

The club with the same city name has a history of 76 years. Nothing was easy for Alexandria both during the USSR period and after that. Ups and downs regularly haunted the Ukrainians, and only in 2015 they managed to take a firm step and strengthen themselves in the country's elite.

At the very beginning

The history of football in Alexandria began in 1948. In the post-war period, the Shakhtar football club was founded in the city. In the year of creation, the team participated in the Ukrainian SSR championship of physical culture.

In the 1950s, Shakhtar became the champion of the Kirovograd region. And in the championships of the Soviet Union, the team played in Group B and spent 9 seasons without winning prize places.

In 1990, after the deformation of Shakhtar, the baton of the city club was taken by the Polygraftekhnika team. Two years later, after the collapse of the USSR, the club started playing in the Ukrainian First League. During 13 years, Polygraftekhnika once advanced to the group of the strongest, but then retreated and stopped existing due to financial problems in the early 2000s.

A new start and a hard work

The team from this city, introduced itself as Alexandria and returned to big football in the 2004/2005 season. They started the competition from Group B of the Ukrainian Second League. Due to the intensive work done during those years, our upcoming rival managed to reach the second strongest league.

In the 2010/2011 season, the team became champion of the First League and qualified for the Premier League. Then another decline and the city team retreated back to where they came from.

In 2014, the UkrAgroCom club joined Alexandria. The team managed to become champions of the First League that year and returned to the Ukrainian Premier League. Since then, until now, Alexandria has not been eliminated from the main championship of the country, but it has won the highest place in the 2018/19 season, finishing in the top three of the championship.

European Cups

In the 2016/17 season, Alexandria qualified for the qualifying round of the Europa League thanks to 6th place in the championship. The Ukrainian team started the competition from the 3rd round and suffered an instant defeat from Croatian Hajduk (1:3, 0:3).

In the following season, Alexandria again took part in the qualifying round of the Europa League and celebrated the first victory. At that time, our rival managed to overcome Romanian Astra thanks to one goal scored in the confrontation. Already in the playoffs, the Belarusian BATE stood on the way of the Ukrainian team, which won the confrontation 3:2 and went to the Europa League.

Finishing 3rd in the 2018/19 season Alexandria qualified for the Europa League group stage. German Wolfsburg, Belgian Gent and French Saint-Etienne were among their rivals in the group.

Alexandria managed to score 3 draws, two of them with Saint-Etienne and one with Gent.

Record holders

The best scorer in the history of Alexandria is Vasiliy Gritsuk with 44 goals. The Ukrainian has been by the side of the club during difficult times and helped them to reach from the First League to the race of the strongest.

Andrey Zaporozhye participated in the most matches for Alexandria - 12 years and 330 official matches.

Regular matches

Pyunik and Alexandria met each other in friendly matches in different years. In the last 3 games, the Ukrainian team won 2:1. The last game took place last year. Pyunik was able to celebrate a victory with the smallest score in that game thanks to Artak Dashyan's accurate and wonderful long-range shot.

Ruslan Rotan was the temporary head coach of the Ukrainian national team for 4 months and now, besides the club, he also leads the country's Olympic football team.

Rotan enjoyed great popularity during his football career in Ukraine. He played for the national team for 15 years and in the 2014/15 season became the vice-champion of the Europa League with Dnipro as the captain of the team.

In the current Ukrainian season, Alexandria has earned the same number of points after 16 games and places 11th. The city team scored 2 wins and 3 defeats in the last 5 official matches and dropped out of the Ukrainian Cup.

During this year's training camp Alexandria played 7 games, recorded 3 wins, one draw and 3 defeats.