The Astana Courier
Transfer targets14 Sep 2026
Too dear: Astana walk away from Ilyas Chouaref
$5.9M was the most the club would pay and Sion were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
Market14 Sep 2026
The Irtysh deal is off
Everything was agreed until it was not, and Ivan Bašić reports back to Astana with a summer to forget. Neither club is saying who walked away from the table.
Boardroom14 Sep 2026
Deadline passes with 19 signed and 1 gone
That is the business done at Astana until the window opens again. Whether it was enough will be answered on Saturdays rather than in a column, and the first Saturday is close.
Boardroom14 Sep 2026
Astana go back to the board over Ilyas Chouaref
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $6.4M — a club that wants Ilyas Chouaref enough to be asked twice.
Transfer targets14 Sep 2026
Baylee Dipepa turns down Astana
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Charlton Athletic keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Transfer targets14 Sep 2026
Defensa y Justicia tell Astana: Fernando Román is not for sale
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.
Market14 Sep 2026
Astana promote Rinat Postnikov from within
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Rinat Postnikov 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.
Market14 Sep 2026
Astana promote Dauren Beysebekov from within
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Dauren Beysebekov 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.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Words at Astana training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Yurii Vakulko 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.
In brief
- Squad Astana are still strangers to each other
- Squad Rauno Sappinen has outgrown this division
- The dugout When it matters, Karlo Bartolec plays