Marked for Rinat Baizhanov
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market24 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.
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
Words at Akzhaiyk training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Rahim Alboughobaish 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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Player ratings3 Aug 2026
Two goals and a mark of 9.00 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Market3 Aug 2026
Nasaf 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.
Player ratings3 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 23. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad3 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.
Match1 Aug 2026
Three points for Akzhaiyk, 3‑2 the final word against Shakhter in a contest settled by the finer margins.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Words at Akzhaiyk training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Rahim Alboughobaish 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 terraces3 Aug 2026
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Rinat Baizhanov has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
Player ratings3 Aug 2026
Ninety minutes of Yeldos Postnikov at his very best
Marked 8.00. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Akzhaiyk.
Squad3 Aug 2026
There is a level at which a footballer stops being tested and starts being contained, and he reached it some time ago. Akzhaiyk know it, and so does everybody who watches him.