Marked for Rustam Zhankhaev
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad25 Dec 2028
Älibek Qasym was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Squad25 Dec 2028
Words at Shakhter training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Meirambek Qalmyrza is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Squad25 Dec 2028
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad9 Oct 2028
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Squad9 Oct 2028
El'khan Astanov was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Squad9 Oct 2028
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Somila Ntsundwana commits to Shakhter for another 2 years.
Squad9 Oct 2028
Älibek Qasym falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Loan watch9 Oct 2028
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Shakhter, and 4 appearances in 32 say he has earned the hearing.
Market9 Oct 2028
The name of Meirambek Qalmyrza keeps appearing in other people's back pages. Shakhter say nothing, which says plenty.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad21 Aug 2028
Älibek Qasym in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Shakhter this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Boardroom21 Aug 2028
Irtysh will keep picking him until June and will get nothing for him after it. Sam Adams has pre-agreed a move to Shakhter, and the only people who lose in that arrangement are the ones who let the contract run down.
Market21 Aug 2028
The name of Ordabasy Islamkhan has come up in conversations Shakhter were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Squad21 Aug 2028
Aleksandr Migunov falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Loan watch21 Aug 2028
“I did not go to Borneo to sit and watch. I want to come back to Shakhter and fight for my place.” 0 appearances in 7 matches say the rest.
Squad21 Aug 2028
Aleksandr Migunov has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Shakhter will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad27 Sep 2027
Meirambek Qalmyrza damages knee ligaments — 24 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 24 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Squad27 Sep 2027
Älibek Qasym falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Squad27 Sep 2027
Rustam Zhankhaev was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.