Alexandr Martynovich 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.
Squad28 Dec 2026
Erkin Tapalov 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.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Edmilson wants continental football; whether Kairat can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Edmilson 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.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
The words a physio says slowly. 16 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.
Edmilson 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 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.
45 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Kairat lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Edmilson 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 clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Kairat is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Kairat this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Words at Kairat training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Sebastián Zeballos 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.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Kairat, another week without a signature from Jorginho.
“I watch every Kairat game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Astana runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
Nobody at Kairat will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
Krasnodar arrived with $2.6M and left with the best player in the building. The board will call it business; the queue at the ticket office will use other words.
The accountants will call it good business and they will be right, which is not the point anybody outside the boardroom is making. Marc Gual was one of the reasons people came, and $2.6M does not replace that by itself.
Edmilson 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.
“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 Kairat, and it is not being withdrawn.
The offer from Taraz for Lev Kurgin 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.
The rules permit it and it stings anyway. Jorginho has agreed terms with Astana for the summer, and until then he pulls on this shirt as a player who has already chosen his next one.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Kairat this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
In brief
SquadWords at Kairat training over how hard people work
A shoot-out is remembered by its ending, and this one ends with Temirlan Anarbekov: 1 kept out, and a set of supporters who will describe every one of them for the next twenty years.
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Lev Kurgin has pre-agreed a move away, which means every appearance between now and June is made by a man the club can no longer sell, and somebody upstairs will be asked why the contract was allowed to get here.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Kairat this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Nothing happens for months and then he simply arrives, at no cost, having signed a pre-contract while still turning out for somebody else. It is the least dramatic way to sign a footballer and frequently the shrewdest.
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.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Kairat they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Marc Gual 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.
There is a level at which a footballer stops being tested and starts being contained, and he reached it some time ago. Kairat know it, and so does everybody who watches him.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Temirlan Anarbekov signs something — a contract at Kairat or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Kairat this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Words at Kairat training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Temirlan Anarbekov 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 paperwork is done long before the player is. Zhasūlan Zhūmashev has agreed terms to come here when his current deal runs out, which means Kairat have spent a summer's transfer budget on a phone call.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Kairat, another week without a signature from Jorginho.
6 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Edmilson wants continental football; whether Kairat can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Alexandr Martynovich and Kairat agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Alexandr Martynovich 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.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Yahav Afriat has just signed for Kairat, and for once the answer mattered.
18 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.