Marked for Gafurzhan Logvinenko
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad27 Mar 2028
46 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Akzhaiyk lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad27 Mar 2028
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 dugout27 Mar 2028
This is not rotation. Leiner Lobo has not been in the manager's plans for some time, and nobody at Akzhaiyk is pretending otherwise.
The dugout27 Mar 2028
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
The dugout27 Mar 2028
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Azat Postnikov is on it.
Market27 Mar 2028
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Azat Postnikov signs something — a contract at Akzhaiyk or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
The dugout27 Mar 2028
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Abdulaziz Al-Asbahi has written the date down.
Market27 Mar 2028
4 months left, and both sides know what that means: every week without a signature, the fee Akzhaiyk could ask drops and the wages Gafurzhan Logvinenko can ask rise.
Looking ahead27 Mar 2028
Next up at home: Atyrau, who go into it in position 12. The kind of fixture a season is quietly built on or quietly loses its shape in.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad10 Jan 2028
Words exchanged at Akzhaiyk
Yeldos Tymoshchuk 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.
Squad10 Jan 2028
Ivan Severjanov 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 dugout10 Jan 2028
Yeldos Tymoshchuk has become a man the manager trusts
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.
Market10 Jan 2028
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Akzhaiyk, another week without a signature from Victor Chuvilov.
Market10 Jan 2028
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Azat Postnikov’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.
Market10 Jan 2028
7 months left and the two sides are nowhere near each other. Every week this drags on takes money off what Akzhaiyk could get for him.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad20 Dec 2027
A falling-out at Akzhaiyk
Ivan Severjanov and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad20 Dec 2027
Lev Ushakov 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 dugout20 Dec 2027
Aibol Kuat asks for a word with the manager
“I would rather say it to his face than read about it.” The meeting was requested by the player, which tells you most of what you need to know.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market20 Sep 2027
“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.
Squad20 Sep 2027
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.
Squad20 Sep 2027
Talğat Kusiapov 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.
Transfer targets20 Sep 2027
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.
Squad20 Sep 2027
It happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph a local paper has to write. 36 years old, 3 points down on where he was, and a body that has started charging interest on a career.
The dugout20 Sep 2027
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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match9 Aug 2027
Akzhaiyk finish in position 8
23 points, and the season has a number on it. Whatever it felt like from the inside, this is what it will look like in a book.
Squad9 Aug 2027
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 44 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Player ratings9 Aug 2027
Successful dribbles: 27. 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.
Squad9 Aug 2027
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Rinat Nurgaliev and Akzhaiyk agree another 3 years.
Squad9 Aug 2027
A row about effort at Akzhaiyk
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Talğat Kusiapov was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Transfer targets9 Aug 2027
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.
Match7 Aug 2027
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Gafurzhan Tagybergen. 2‑1 against Shakhter, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
The dugout9 Aug 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Serikzhan Abiken, and the manager let it.
Player ratings9 Aug 2027
A performance of 8.39 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad21 Jun 2027
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Akzhaiyk will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Squad21 Jun 2027
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 8 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Market21 Jun 2027
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Market21 Jun 2027
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Transfer targets21 Jun 2027
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.
Match19 Jun 2027
Tobol left with the points after a 0‑2 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Squad21 Jun 2027
Everybody saw it before anybody said it. At 35 the numbers say 3 points down on what he was, and the question for Akzhaiyk is how to handle a man they owe a great deal.
Squad21 Jun 2027
Words exchanged at Akzhaiyk
Gafurzhan Logvinenko 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 dugout21 Jun 2027
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Aibol Taykenov after 0‑2, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad14 Jun 2027
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Akzhaiyk will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Market14 Jun 2027
“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.
Squad14 Jun 2027
Talğat Kusiapov 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 terraces14 Jun 2027
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.
Match12 Jun 2027
Atyrau made Akzhaiyk work for it, but the scoreboard read 2‑0 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Player ratings14 Jun 2027
Marked 8.24 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Squad14 Jun 2027
“The easiest signature of my career.” Gafurzhan Tagybergen and Akzhaiyk agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad14 Jun 2027
Anton Serov 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 Akzhaiyk this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The dugout14 Jun 2027
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 2‑0, Aibol Taykenov could afford to be generous.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match20 Mar 2027
3‑0, and Azat Postnikov took the headlines on an afternoon when everything Akzhaiyk tried came off. Days like this are retold all winter.
Player ratings22 Mar 2027
Two goals and a mark of 8.62 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
The dugout22 Mar 2027
“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.
Squad22 Mar 2027
A move Ozodbek Marufov would have made for nothing
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Ozodbek Marufov is living that version at Akzhaiyk, and it tends to show in the first month.
Squad22 Mar 2027
Words at Akzhaiyk training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Talğat Kusiapov 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.
Match20 Mar 2027
The drought breaks for Akzhaiyk
5 without a win is the sort of run that changes how a town talks about its club, and Atyrau were the afternoon it stopped. Nothing is fixed by one result and everything feels different by one.
Player ratings22 Mar 2027
A performance of 8.07 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Squad22 Mar 2027
A falling-out at Akzhaiyk
Abdulaziz Al-Asbahi and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad22 Mar 2027
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Ozodbek Marufov commits to Akzhaiyk for another 3 years.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad7 Dec 2026
18 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Akzhaiyk lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Squad7 Dec 2026
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Victor Chuvilov and Akzhaiyk agree another 2 years.
Squad7 Dec 2026
A row about effort at Akzhaiyk
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Rinat Nurgaliev was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.