Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Zhetysu they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad2 Nov 2026
Words at Zhetysu training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Alan Chochiev 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.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Zhetysu is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Serikzhan Muzhikov and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
22 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
Zhetysu had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Racing Club, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Zhetysu this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Ädilkhan Dobai trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
He is doing things on a Saturday afternoon that nobody around him can answer, which is flattering for about one season and a problem after that. Zhetysu will not keep him by pretending otherwise.
3 months left, and both sides know what that means: every week without a signature, the fee Zhetysu could ask drops and the wages Ädilkhan Dobai can ask rise.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Zhetysu have lost him in all but the paperwork.
Boardroom14 Sep 2026
Deadline passes with 22 signed and 0 gone
That is the business done at Zhetysu until the window opens again. Whether it was enough will be answered on Saturdays rather than in a column, and the first Saturday is close.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Alan Chochiev was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Zhetysu this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Nurbol Dosmagambetov has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
Zhetysu have made the call to Racing Club. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. Zhetysu will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
The dugout14 Sep 2026
The manager has not finished forgetting Nūrbergen Nūrbol's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Colón is saying, and nobody at Zhetysu is enjoying the guessing.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Yegor Iljashenko has just signed for Zhetysu, and for once the answer mattered.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Words at Zhetysu training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Alan Chochiev 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.
21 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.