Marked for Samat Postnikov
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Boardroom3 Jan 2028
The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Aibol Postnikov has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
Boardroom3 Jan 2028
The Akzhaiyk board call everybody in
Nothing has been announced and everybody understands what it means. A board that summons the whole football department on a Tuesday morning is a board that has stopped believing the problem will fix itself.
Squad3 Jan 2028
Abzal Taykenov 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.
Squad3 Jan 2028
Masaki Okino 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.
Squad3 Jan 2028
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Edmund Schlupp and Akzhaiyk agree another 3 years.
Market3 Jan 2028
Edmund Schlupp is 18, and Akzhaiyk have signed him for the player he will be rather than the one he is. The first team can wait; the point of a deal like this is the years it buys.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad18 Oct 2027
Naftali Balay damages knee ligaments — 56 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 56 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Match18 Oct 2027
Akzhaiyk sink to position 11
13 points, and a fixture list that is running out. The mathematics are not yet cruel, but they are no longer kind.
Squad18 Oct 2027
A fracture rules Marat Abiken out for 31 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.
Squad18 Oct 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.
Squad18 Oct 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.
Market18 Oct 2027
Akzhaiyk have let the market know Abzal Taykenov can be had. No price in the advert, but everyone in the trade knows roughly what it says.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match10 Jul 2027
Nowhere to hide for Akzhaiyk
4‑10 against Aktobe, and no complaints that would survive the replay. The manager spoke about character afterwards; the terraces used shorter words.
Match10 Jul 2027
9 matches without a win for Akzhaiyk
The run now stands at 9, and the questions being asked around Akzhaiyk are no longer polite ones.
Market12 Jul 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.
Player ratings12 Jul 2027
Both of them Marat Kuat's — 9.21
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 9.21, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Squad12 Jul 2027
A fracture rules Serikzhan Orazov out for 22 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.
Squad12 Jul 2027
There were 7 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.
Market12 Jul 2027
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Squad12 Jul 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.
Match10 Jul 2027
14 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Akzhaiyk and Aktobe in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Match12 Aug 2026
The cup run ends for Akzhaiyk
1‑2 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.
Squad17 Aug 2026
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.
Squad17 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.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Dauren Murtazaev 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.
Squad17 Aug 2026
The manager makes an example of Kairat Taykenov
“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.
Market17 Aug 2026
“They were honest with me, and I would rather know.” Abzal Taykenov has been informed he is not in the manager's thinking at Akzhaiyk.