“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Akzhaiyk have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Kairat is saying, and nobody at Akzhaiyk is enjoying the guessing.
Dauren Taykenov 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.
Successful dribbles: 18. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad5 Jul 2027
Words at Akzhaiyk training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Guilherme Kabbaz 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.
5 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Akzhaiyk have done the hard part with Aktobe, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 4 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
Akzhaiyk asked and Kairat said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Azat Beysebekov 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.
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.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Elgün Dünyamalıyev and Akzhaiyk agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Akzhaiyk are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
9 without a win is the sort of run that changes how a town talks about its club, and Shakhter were the afternoon it stopped. Nothing is fixed by one result and everything feels different by one.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Akzhaiyk this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
He is 23 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Dauren Taykenov. 2‑0 against Shakhter, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
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.
6 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 6 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
6 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Akzhaiyk can tell you which week it ends in.
0‑2 to Astana, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Squad26 Apr 2027
Words at Akzhaiyk training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Guilherme Kabbaz 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 chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 5 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Akzhaiyk are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Akzhaiyk this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
9 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑2, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
Gor Vasilyan 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.
Squad5 Apr 2027
Words at Akzhaiyk training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Guilherme Kabbaz 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.
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Guilherme Kabbaz has come out of that comparison in the side, and Akzhaiyk have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
The dugout5 Apr 2027
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Islambek Baizhanov was not hiding it after 0‑0, and nobody in the Akzhaiyk dressing room was either.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Baktiyor Dosmagambetov has his answer from Akzhaiyk; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
Successful dribbles: 11. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
The manager wanted a different profile for this opponent, which is a real football reason and no consolation. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
In brief
The dugoutMarcus Uberaba unhappy with how he is being used
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 19 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Guilherme Kabbaz was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Successful dribbles: 16. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
Squad22 Mar 2027
10 new faces, and Akzhaiyk are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
The dugout22 Mar 2027
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 0‑1 Islambek Baizhanov left the room before anybody could ask which.
The shape wanted a different profile against this opponent, which is a real football answer and no comfort at all to the man it is about. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
Marcus Uberaba 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.
He is 21 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
It finished 2‑0, and it was Dauren Taykenov’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Akzhaiyk.
Squad15 Mar 2027
Words at Akzhaiyk training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Guilherme Kabbaz 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.
Dauren Taykenov is 20, and for one weekend he was the best of everybody his age in the division. Nobody should build a career on it and everybody quietly does.
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
The offer from Irtysh for Dauren Taykenov was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Akzhaiyk can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Mansur Dil'murat 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.
The dugout8 Feb 2027
Rinat Kuat is still being punished for one mistake
Nobody will confirm it and the team sheets confirm it every week. One error has bought him a spell as second choice that is already longer than the error deserved.
Mansur Dil'murat 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.
Nobody at Akzhaiyk 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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Azat Beysebekov trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
At 20 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
Mansur Dil'murat 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.
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.
In brief
The dugoutRinat Kuat is still being punished for one mistake
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Akzhaiyk can pretend not to have heard.
Mansur Dil'murat 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.
At 36, he has seen every situation this season can produce, twice. The legs will be managed; the head is the purchase.
The dugout14 Dec 2026
Rinat Kuat is still being punished for one mistake
Nobody will confirm it and the team sheets confirm it every week. One error has bought him a spell as second choice that is already longer than the error deserved.
Nobody at Akzhaiyk 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.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Marcus Uberaba has, at Akzhaiyk, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
It is the quietest kind of dressing-room problem and the one that lasts longest, because nobody has done anything anyone can be disciplined for. 4 players sit outside all 5 groups entirely, which is the detail that tends to matter.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Akzhaiyk this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. Akzhaiyk will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.