Henrikh Mkhitaryan returned home to the Yerevan club where his career began, welcomed by a swarm of young Armenian fans chanting his name. With his mother and son at his side, he left his handprint and footprint beneath the club’s “Tree of Glory.” The day brought a gift, a tribute to his late father, and hours spent among the children who now dream of walking the same path that made him the greatest footballer in Armenian history.
“Welcome home, Henrikh,” Pyunik wrote, greeting the return of its famous academy graduate. The homecoming event kicked off on June 19 at the Pyunik sports base in Yerevan, where players from the club’s youth teams turned out to welcome him. He greeted them, then presented his Inter Milan jersey to the club.
“I welcome everyone. I am grateful to the football club, the director, all those present, the children. You can’t imagine how proud I am here, my feelings are very high, I am very happy. I am very excited. It is always nice to return to where everything began. In that honor, I want to present a jersey to the Pyunik football club, on which it is written: everything began with Pyunik,” said Mkhitaryan.
The program included a screening of a short film dedicated to his career, featuring archive footage of his performances for his clubs and the Armenian national team alongside visual materials marking the key stages of his journey. After the screening, an open dialogue followed, where Mkhitaryan spoke with the young footballers and shared stories about his path in the game, his career, and his experience competing at the highest level.
The event also honored the memory of Hamlet Mkhitaryan, Henrikh’s father and an outstanding figure of Armenian football in his own right. A striker, he scored 46 goals for Ararat Yerevan in the Soviet Top League during the 1980s before moving to France to play in Ligue 2 for ASOA Valence, and earned two caps for Armenia in 1994. His career was cut short by a brain tumor in 1995, and he died the following year. Mkhitaryan, Pyunik representatives, and the participants observed a minute of silence in his memory.
A Pyunik academy graduate, Mkhitaryan is the Inter Milan midfielder and all-time top scorer of the Armenian national team. He came up through Pyunik before going on to play for Metalurh Donetsk, Shakhtar Donetsk, Borussia Dortmund, Manchester United, Arsenal, Roma, and Inter, becoming one of the most decorated footballers in Armenian history. After the event, a huge queue formed for his autograph.
