The Ordabasy Courier
Squad20 Mar 2028
A knee injury of the worst kind for Hamilton
63 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Ordabasy lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The dugout20 Mar 2028
Sūltanbek Astanov frozen out at Ordabasy
This is not rotation. Sūltanbek Astanov has not been in the manager's plans for some time, and nobody at Ordabasy is pretending otherwise.
Squad20 Mar 2028
Words exchanged at Ordabasy
Tidiane Keita 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.
Squad20 Mar 2028
Mihai Căpăţînă 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.
Player ratings20 Mar 2028
One of those days for Sūltanbek Astanov
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.08, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
The dugout20 Mar 2028
Bekkhan Shaizada gets it from the manager
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Squad20 Mar 2028
Arda Akzhan signs on for more
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Arda Akzhan and Ordabasy agree another 4 years.
Match18 Mar 2028
Sūltanbek Astanov rescues a point for Ordabasy
It needed Sūltanbek Astanov to find the net to bring anything home at all: 1‑1 against Atyrau, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
The dugout20 Mar 2028
Bjørn Johnsen has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Ordabasy 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.
In brief
- The dugout Dauren Orazov on the point
- Player ratings Léo Natel runs at them all day
- Market Aleksa Amanović placed on the list