Marked for Marat Orazov
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market6 Nov 2028
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Akzhaiyk is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad6 Nov 2028
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.
The dugout6 Nov 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.
Squad6 Nov 2028
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.
Squad6 Nov 2028
“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.
Squad6 Nov 2028
The decline has begun for Mirzo Ganiev
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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market9 Oct 2028
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Akzhaiyk is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad9 Oct 2028
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.
The dugout9 Oct 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.
Squad9 Oct 2028
Leiner Lobo 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 dugout9 Oct 2028
Marat Orazov 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.
Squad9 Oct 2028
A window away with the national side, and a shirt at Akzhaiyk that briefly doubles as an advertisement. A call-up flatters the player and the club that built him in the same breath.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad2 Oct 2028
Words at Akzhaiyk training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ivan Severjanov 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.
Squad2 Oct 2028
Oleksii Plichko 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 dugout2 Oct 2028
Temirlan Erlanov 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.
Market2 Oct 2028
Leiner Lobo told to find a new club
“They were honest with me, and I would rather know.” Leiner Lobo has been informed he is not in the manager's thinking at Akzhaiyk.
Market2 Oct 2028
“There is a gap, and pretending there is not helps nobody.” Neither side has moved, and the calendar is working for exactly one of them.
Squad2 Oct 2028
“I will know when it is time. I am not there yet.” Victor Chuvilov is 33, with 267 appearances behind him, and Akzhaiyk will have to plan for whichever answer comes.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market11 Sep 2028
Only the photograph left for Marat Orazov
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Marat Orazov will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Akzhaiyk the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Boardroom11 Sep 2028
Akzhaiyk close the window on a squad of their own making
11 in and 10 out, and no more changes for months. The manager has what he has, the supporters have their opinion of it, and the table will have the last word.
Squad11 Sep 2028
A falling-out at Akzhaiyk
Yeldos Tymoshchuk and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
The dugout11 Sep 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.
Squad11 Sep 2028
A row about effort at Akzhaiyk
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Ivan Severjanov was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Squad11 Sep 2028
“The easiest signature of my career.” Dauren Kuat and Akzhaiyk agree another 3 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Transfer targets11 Sep 2028
Astana have been asked whether they would lend him. Loans are agreed quickly or not at all, and this one will be one or the other by the weekend.
The dugout11 Sep 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.
Market11 Sep 2028
“There is a gap, and pretending there is not helps nobody.” Neither side has moved, and the calendar is working for exactly one of them.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match14 Aug 2028
Akzhaiyk finish in position 5
34 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.
Squad14 Aug 2028
8 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.
Player ratings14 Aug 2028
Two goals and a mark of 9.09 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Squad14 Aug 2028
23 goals and a season average of 7.41. Form like that gets noticed well beyond this town.
Squad14 Aug 2028
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.
The dugout14 Aug 2028
“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.
Market14 Aug 2028
Marat Orazov has one foot out of the door
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Akzhaiyk they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Market14 Aug 2028
“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.
Transfer targets14 Aug 2028
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Aktobe keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad31 Jul 2028
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.
Squad31 Jul 2028
3 goals in one afternoon from one man. The other players were also present, a witness confirmed.
Market31 Jul 2028
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Akzhaiyk people have started saying his name in the past tense.
Player ratings31 Jul 2028
The hardest thing about being 18 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Baurzhan Vorogovskiy did not need any: 8.30, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Squad31 Jul 2028
Defences have started doubling up on Azat Postnikov
20 goals and a season average of 7.32 will do that. The space he used to find has gone; he keeps scoring anyway, which is the mark of the real thing.
Market31 Jul 2028
“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.
Match29 Jul 2028
6 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Akzhaiyk and Taraz in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
Match29 Jul 2028
A 4‑2 win over Taraz, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Player ratings31 Jul 2028
A performance of 9.50 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
From our football correspondent
Steady
The dugout12 Jun 2028
Marat Orazov: that is not what I was promised
“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.
Squad12 Jun 2028
A row about effort at Akzhaiyk
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Ivan Severjanov was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Squad12 Jun 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.
Match10 Jun 2028
Irtysh left with the points after a 0‑2 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
The dugout12 Jun 2028
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Yeldos Tymoshchuk, and the manager let it.
The dugout12 Jun 2028
“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.
Player ratings12 Jun 2028
Successful dribbles: 15. 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.
Squad12 Jun 2028
One booking too many, and Temirlan Erlanov sits out. Akzhaiyk lose him for the sort of avoidable reason that makes a manager's week longer.
Squad12 Jun 2028
A window away with the national side, and a shirt at Akzhaiyk that briefly doubles as an advertisement. A call-up flatters the player and the club that built him in the same breath.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad10 Apr 2028
32 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.
Match5 Apr 2028
The cup run ends for Akzhaiyk
0‑2 against Aktobe, and the road stops here. Cup exits are quick deaths — no second leg, no next week, just the league from now until May.
The dugout10 Apr 2028
“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.
Squad10 Apr 2028
A fracture rules Samat Shomko out for 46 days
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.
Squad10 Apr 2028
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Temirlan Erlanov and Akzhaiyk agree another 1 years.
Squad10 Apr 2028
Words at Akzhaiyk training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ivan Severjanov 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.
Player ratings10 Apr 2028
Successful dribbles: 19. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Match8 Apr 2028
A bad afternoon for Akzhaiyk against Tobol
0‑1 to Tobol, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
The dugout10 Apr 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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad18 Jan 2027
Words exchanged at Akzhaiyk
Marat Orazov 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.
Squad18 Jan 2027
Words at Akzhaiyk training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Rinat Nurgaliev 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.
Squad18 Jan 2027
A welcome sight on the training pitch: Dauren Kuat has come through recovery and is pushing for a place again.