Marked for Azat Postnikov
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match3 May 2027
Akzhaiyk are in real trouble now
Position 10, 7 points, and a fixture list with fewer games left in it than excuses. The arithmetic is not cruel yet, but it has stopped being kind.
Market3 May 2027
“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 The request is on a desk at Akzhaiyk, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad3 May 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.
Match1 May 2027
A bad afternoon for Akzhaiyk against Aktobe
1‑2 to Aktobe, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Squad3 May 2027
Leiner Lobo 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.
Squad3 May 2027
He will be fined, he will apologise, and he will play on Saturday. The order of those three tells you everything about what a football club actually values.
Squad3 May 2027
200 games in this shirt, through managers and relegations and everything else. Service like it is disappearing from the game and the crowd knows what it is watching.
The dugout3 May 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Leiner Lobo, and the manager let it.
The dugout3 May 2027
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Aibol Taykenov after 1‑2, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match17 Apr 2027
Kairat left with the points after a 0‑1 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Squad19 Apr 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.
Squad19 Apr 2027
The medical room confirms 16 days on the sidelines for Aibol Dosmagambetov, and a plan built around him now has to be rebuilt.
Squad19 Apr 2027
7 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 dugout19 Apr 2027
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Aibol Taykenov after 0‑1, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
Player ratings19 Apr 2027
Successful dribbles: 13. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
The dugout19 Apr 2027
“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.
Looking ahead19 Apr 2027
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Astana in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
The dugout19 Apr 2027
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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Match7 Apr 2027
Akzhaiyk bow out of the cup
Aktobe go through and Akzhaiyk go home, 1‑2 the scoreline that did it. The dressing room will call the league the priority now, because that is what dressing rooms say.
Squad12 Apr 2027
There were 8 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Player ratings12 Apr 2027
Victor Chuvilov pops up at the right end — 7.97
7.97, 1 on the scoresheet, and the specific comedy of a back-four player celebrating like somebody who does this every week. He does not, and that is exactly why the ground reacted the way it did.
Player ratings12 Apr 2027
Successful dribbles: 21. 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 Apr 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.
The terraces12 Apr 2027
The crowd has taken to Lev Ushakov
At 19 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
Match10 Apr 2027
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Azat Postnikov. 2‑0 against Zhetysu, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Squad12 Apr 2027
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and Akzhaiyk know it.
Squad12 Apr 2027
Words exchanged at Akzhaiyk
Abdulaziz Al-Asbahi 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.
In brief
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The dugout
A promise honoured at Akzhaiyk
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The dugout
The view from the dugout
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The dugout
The plan did not have a place for Alexandr Seraskhov
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Player ratings5 Apr 2027
A brace, and Azat Postnikov takes the afternoon — 8.55
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Azat Postnikov provided it, and the 8.55 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Squad5 Apr 2027
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Squad5 Apr 2027
Words exchanged at Akzhaiyk
Alexandr Seraskhov 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
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.
Squad5 Apr 2027
“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.
Match3 Apr 2027
Akzhaiyk rescue it on 90 minutes
Behind, and beaten by any honest reading, until minute 90. Tobol had the points in their pocket and a corner of the ground still believed, which is generally when it happens.
Player ratings5 Apr 2027
Successful dribbles: 17. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Match3 Apr 2027
A 2‑2 draw with Tobol leaves the dressing room somewhere between relief and regret.
The dugout5 Apr 2027
“It is not the end of the world and it is not good enough. Both of those are true.” The manager, after a 2‑2 draw, said the honest thing and then went to say it again inside.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad29 Mar 2027
A falling-out at Akzhaiyk
Alexandr Seraskhov and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad29 Mar 2027
Everybody at Akzhaiyk saw it before anybody said it, which is how this always goes. At 33 the decline is real and measurable — 3 points — and the only question left is how the club handles somebody it owes a great deal to.
Looking ahead29 Mar 2027
Akzhaiyk take on the side everybody is chasing
Tobol arrive as leaders. A side at the top is beaten roughly once a month, and the club that does it gets a week it remembers for a year.
Squad29 Mar 2027
The division's best last weekend was a Akzhaiyk man
It is a small honour and it is not nothing: somebody watched every match in the division and decided that Azat Postnikov was the best thing in any of them.
The dugout29 Mar 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Serikzhan Nurgaliev, and the manager let it.
The dugout29 Mar 2027
Leiner Lobo 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.
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
Crisis
Match13 Mar 2027
No end in sight to Akzhaiyk's wait for a win
5 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Akzhaiyk has to find a result from somewhere.
Squad15 Mar 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.
Match13 Mar 2027
Irtysh left with the points after a 1‑2 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Squad15 Mar 2027
51 days, the scan says, and scans are kinder than reality. The fixtures in that window have just become somebody else’s job.
Player ratings15 Mar 2027
Successful dribbles: 16. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
The dugout15 Mar 2027
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 1‑2 defeat, delivered by Aibol Taykenov to a room that had heard them before.
Squad15 Mar 2027
Akzhaiyk are still strangers to each other
6 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.
Squad15 Mar 2027
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Abzal Shomko and Akzhaiyk agree another 3 years.
Market15 Mar 2027
“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.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match6 Mar 2027
Beaten 2‑5 by Ordabasy, and beaten everywhere it matters. The inquest starts on the training pitch on Monday morning.
Player ratings8 Mar 2027
Lev Ushakov, 19, plays like he has been here for years — 7.71
A mark of 7.71 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 19-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Market8 Mar 2027
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Match6 Mar 2027
No end in sight to Akzhaiyk's wait for a win
4 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Akzhaiyk has to find a result from somewhere.
Match6 Mar 2027
Victor Chuvilov among the goals in a wild afternoon
7 goals in one match, Victor Chuvilov on the scoresheet, and a scoreline that will look like a misprint. Neutrals could not have asked more of Akzhaiyk and Ordabasy.
Boardroom8 Mar 2027
5 academy graduates step up at Akzhaiyk
Senior shirt numbers handed to boys the coaches have known since they were twelve. Most will not make it and all of them have already done the hard part.
Market8 Mar 2027
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Abzal Shomko has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
Market8 Mar 2027
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Marat Orazov is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Market8 Mar 2027
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Baurzhan Vorogovskiy has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
In brief
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Player ratings
A masterclass from Victor Chuvilov
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Boardroom
Nobody left the Akzhaiyk dressing room in a hurry
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The dugout
The view from the dugout
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Boardroom1 Mar 2027
Window shuts: 6 in, 5 out at Akzhaiyk
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 6 arrived, 5 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
Squad1 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.
Transfer targets1 Mar 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.
Market1 Mar 2027
The interest is real enough to have reached print. Akzhaiyk have said nothing, which in a transfer window is its own kind of answer.
The dugout1 Mar 2027
The manager makes an example of Victor Chuvilov
“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.
Market1 Mar 2027
“We are a long way apart, and pretending otherwise helps nobody.” Neither side is close, and the calendar is not on the club's side.
Squad1 Mar 2027
A falling-out at Akzhaiyk
Erbol Shomko and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad1 Mar 2027
The demotion a club never announces and a dressing room always notices. Oleksii Plichko is further from the side than he was, and the reason will not be given until he asks.
Squad1 Mar 2027
Not a new contract, not a new number: a new place in the manager’s thinking, which is the only promotion in football that actually matters. Talğat Kusiapov has moved up it.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market8 Feb 2027
Kairat Orazov hands in a written request
“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.
Market8 Feb 2027
Akzhaiyk say no — this time
The offer from Shakhter for Azat Postnikov 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.
Squad8 Feb 2027
Words exchanged at Akzhaiyk
Alexandr Seraskhov 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.
Squad8 Feb 2027
A muscle injury sidelines Leiner Lobo for 15 days
Nobody makes a documentary about a hamstring and everybody in the game fears one. Akzhaiyk will be careful with the return date, because the second one is always worse than the first.
Squad8 Feb 2027
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Oleksii Plichko and Akzhaiyk agree another 3 years.
Transfer targets8 Feb 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.
Squad8 Feb 2027
Words at Akzhaiyk training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Victor Chuvilov 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 dugout8 Feb 2027
The manager makes an example of Leiner Lobo
“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.
Market8 Feb 2027
“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
Uneasy
Squad7 Sep 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Maxim Tagybergen
111 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.
Market7 Sep 2026
“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.
Market7 Sep 2026
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Abzal Baizhanov 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.
Market7 Sep 2026
“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 Alexandr Seraskhov.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Lev Ushakov named in the team of the month
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Lev Ushakov is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad24 Aug 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Maxim Tagybergen
125 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.
Market24 Aug 2026
Ordabasy come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Akzhaiyk did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Market24 Aug 2026
“It was not right for me. I am not going to explain why to anybody except the people I owe an explanation to.” A deal agreed between two clubs, and a player who declined to be part of it.
Market24 Aug 2026
“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.
Squad24 Aug 2026
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.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Rinat Nurgaliev 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.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Akzhaiyk are still strangers to each other
5 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 dugout24 Aug 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Islambek Tagybergen, and the manager let it.
The dugout24 Aug 2026
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 Dosmagambetov is on it.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Market10 Aug 2026
“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 targets10 Aug 2026
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Akzhaiyk have done the hard part with Zhetysu, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
Player ratings10 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 23. 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.
Squad10 Aug 2026
“The easiest signature of my career.” Azat Postnikov and Akzhaiyk agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad10 Aug 2026
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.
Market10 Aug 2026
The interest is real enough to have reached print. Akzhaiyk have said nothing, which in a transfer window is its own kind of answer.
The dugout10 Aug 2026
The manager makes an example of Azat Postnikov
“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.
Match8 Aug 2026
0‑1 to Shakhter, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
The dugout10 Aug 2026
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Aibol Taykenov after 0‑1, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.