Marked for Marat Tymoshchuk
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market7 Dec 2026
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Akzhaiyk, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad7 Dec 2026
Words exchanged at Akzhaiyk
Ivan Zybchenko 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.
Squad7 Dec 2026
A row about effort at Akzhaiyk
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Leonid Zagrebelny was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Transfer targets21 Sep 2026
$640.0K was the most the club would pay and Kairat were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
Squad21 Sep 2026
A falling-out at Akzhaiyk
Yerkebulan Postnikov and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Transfer targets21 Sep 2026
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Atyrau have kept their man, and Akzhaiyk go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Talgat Baizhanov 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.
The dugout21 Sep 2026
Nurali Shomko knocks on the manager's door
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Akzhaiyk, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Market21 Sep 2026
Akzhaiyk opened the door and nobody walked through it. So Islambek Dosmagambetov stays — listed, trained, and available — while both sides mark the days to January on the same calendar.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad17 Aug 2026
9 saves, and a scoreline the ten men in front of him had no right to. Goalkeepers only get noticed on the bad days; this was one of the other ones.
Match12 Aug 2026
The cup run ends for Akzhaiyk
0‑3 against Tobol, and the road stops here. Cup exits are quick deaths — no second leg, no next week, just the league from now until May.
Market17 Aug 2026
Akzhaiyk say no — this time
The offer from Atyrau for Maxim Orazov 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.
The terraces17 Aug 2026
A cup hiding at Tobol leaves Akzhaiyk explaining themselves
0-3, and long before the end the away end had switched from encouragement to something considerably more pointed. Nobody rings a phone-in about losing narrowly.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Words exchanged at Akzhaiyk
Boris Lysenko 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.
Transfer targets17 Aug 2026
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Words at Akzhaiyk training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Erbol Postnikov 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 dugout17 Aug 2026
“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.
Boardroom17 Aug 2026
Nobody left the Akzhaiyk dressing room in a hurry
The door stayed shut a long time after the final whistle. What was said in there is between them; whether it worked is between them and Saturday.