Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 65 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Marin Tomasov 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.
Nobody at Astana 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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 72 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
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.
Branimir Kalaica 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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 79 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
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.
“I respect the manager and I am not going to sit here and pretend I am happy.” It is the most common sentence in football and it has never once been the end of a story.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Astana will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Astana this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Kipras Kažukolovas has come out of that comparison in the side, and Astana have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
Nobody at Astana 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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Astana will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Karlo Bartolec 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.
Add another name to the list: Akzhaiyk have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Damir Marat. The answer from Astana has not changed — yet.
Three points for Astana, 1‑0 the final word against Zhetysu in a contest settled by the finer margins.
Player ratings26 Jul 2027
Ian Vorogovskiy was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.15. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 17 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 104 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
The offer from Aktobe for Josip Čondrić 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Astana this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Tobol made Astana work for it, but the scoreboard read 1‑0 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Player ratings19 Jul 2027
Ramazan Kärimov was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.46. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 113 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
The offer from Shakhter for Stanislav Basmanov 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.
Marin Tomasov 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.
A touch he did not want, a bounce he could not have read, and his name in the wrong column. There is no consoling a man after one of these, and Astana will not try tonight.
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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Astana will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Astana this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Successful dribbles: 20. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Player ratings5 Jul 2027
Ian Vorogovskiy was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.82. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
“I watch every Astana game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Ordabasy runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
7 arrivals, an average age nobody would call a squad, and a set of parents being shown around a building their sons will spend more time in than at home. The scouting has already happened; today is only the paperwork.
Squad5 Jul 2027
A place in the month's best eleven for Damir Marat
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Damir Marat has come out of that comparison in the side, and Astana have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Astana will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Cup ties wait for somebody to seize them, and Silas Nwankwo obliged against Taraz. 3‑2 on the night, and the name in the next round’s hat is Astana.
Player ratings28 Jun 2027
A brace, and Silas Nwankwo takes the afternoon — 10.00
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Silas Nwankwo provided it, and the 10.00 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
There is no crueller way to lose a football match. Astana scored in the 126th minute, the restart barely happened, and the away end was still standing when the whistle went.
Karlo Bartolec 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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 138 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
The fee is $510.0K, the contract is signed, and the argument about whether he is worth it can begin. Taraz drove a hard bargain; time will say who won it.
9.61. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
Boards get told what they have done wrong for years and hear nothing on the days they get it right. This is one of those days: Egor Ališauskas from Taraz for $510.0K, and a ticket office having a very good morning.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Astana will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Astana this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 154 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
The words a physio says slowly. 18 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.
At 34 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.17 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Marked 9.12 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Astana will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
The words a physio says slowly. 27 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.
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Kipras Kažukolovas scored, was marked 7.89, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
Marin Tomasov 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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Astana will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Position 2, 25 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Astana this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Marked 9.25 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
20 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
8 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Kipras Kažukolovas. 1‑0 against Irtysh, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 66 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
22 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.
3 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Astana can tell you which week it ends in.
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 one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 73 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
“I watch every Astana game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Ordabasy runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
16 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
Nobody at Astana 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.
“I did not come here to warm up in front of people.” He is out of contract eventually, he is old enough to count the weeks, and Astana will have to give him a reason to stay or an exit.
Ninety minutes, no goals, and the argument started before the car park emptied: a point gained, or two thrown away against Zhetysu? Both sides of it will still be going on Thursday.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Astana will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Ramazan Kärimov has come out of that comparison in the side, and Astana have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Astana will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
91 minutes played. Ramazan Kärimov found the finish in time that only existed because of earlier delays, and Atyrau went from a point to nothing inside one movement.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Ramazan Kärimov. 2‑1 against Atyrau, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Marked 8.22 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Lev Kurgin 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.
A defender's mistake gets tidied up by somebody else; a goalkeeper's ends up in the net. He knew before the ball crossed the line, and so did everybody in the ground.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 97 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Position 1, 17 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 9.08 at 39, and nobody on the pitch was better.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Astana this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
A 2‑1 win over Akzhaiyk, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Player ratings19 Apr 2027
Ramazan Kärimov was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.09. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
In brief
SquadMarin Tomasov has become a man the manager trusts
The terracesThe press have found their man in Marin Tomasov
45 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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Astana will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Marin Tomasov 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.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Astana, and 3 appearances in 9 say he has earned the hearing.
Nobody at Astana 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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 113 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 29 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
3 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Astana this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Astana will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 9.13 at 39, and nobody on the pitch was better.
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.
At 34 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.71 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
In brief
SquadMarin Tomasov has become a man the manager trusts
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Astana this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Marked 9.07 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
An error at the back is a moment; an error in goal is a goal. Mükhammedzhan Seisen knows it, the crowd knew it instantly, and there was nobody behind him to make it anything else.
“I watch every Astana game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Ordabasy runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 9.06 at 39, and nobody on the pitch was better.
5 boys move up, and somewhere in the building the people who coached them at twelve are quietly having the best morning of their working year. Nothing about this shows up in a result and it is why the academy exists.
Branimir Kalaica 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.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 20 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Yeldos Nuserbayev is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Dauren 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.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Samat Nuserbayev 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.
Karlo Bartolec 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.
Nobody at Astana 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.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Karlo Bartolec signs something — a contract at Astana 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 Astana this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Every club in football pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time somebody has tried it.
Nobody at Astana 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.
He is doing things on a Saturday afternoon that nobody around him can answer, which is flattering for about one season and a problem after that. Astana will not keep him by pretending otherwise.
Marin Tomasov 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.
Nobody at Astana 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.
Nobody at Astana 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.
He trains hard, says the right things and goes home to an empty flat. Nobody at Astana has done anything wrong, which is exactly what makes it so difficult to fix.
Add another name to the list: Ordabasy have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Nūrali Zhaqsylyq. The answer from Astana has not changed — yet.
Nobody at Astana 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.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Karlo Bartolec signs something — a contract at Astana or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Every club in football pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time somebody has tried it.
Nobody at Astana 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Astana this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Nobody at Astana 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.
The least glamorous thing a foreign signing ever does and the one that decides most of them. A player who can hear the shout behind him is a different footballer from one who cannot.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Astana this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Nobody at Astana 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.
Marin Tomasov 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.
Nobody at Astana 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Astana this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
Nobody at Astana 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.
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.
Ian Vorogovskiy has done the arithmetic and does not like the answer. Nothing corrodes a squad faster, and no club has ever solved it by explaining the wage structure to a footballer.
The message was aimed at the stands as much as the dressing room: Kipras Kažukolovas plays, and the argument is closed until the manager decides otherwise.
Nobody at Astana 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.
Numbers do not stay secret in a dressing room and never have. He is not asking for more than he is worth; he is asking why somebody beside him is worth more, and at Astana that is a harder question to answer.
Nobody at Astana 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.
A manager forgives a bad Saturday far more readily than a bad Tuesday, because one of them he can explain and the other one he chose. The reports this week have not been good.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Astana this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Every club in football pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time somebody has tried it.
Nobody at Astana 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.
Karlo Bartolec 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.
“Judge me on him.” Managers do not say that kind of thing by accident — it moves the pressure from Ivan Bašić’s shoulders onto his own, and both of them know it.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Astana this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Nobody at Astana 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.
Marin Tomasov 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.
Nobody at Astana 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.
Every club in football pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time somebody has tried it.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Astana this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Nobody at Astana 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.
Shohruh Ahmedov 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.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Astana, and both men came out saying it was fine.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Astana this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Nobody at Astana 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.
He looks like a man who lives here now rather than one who is working here. It took most of a season, and at Astana the difference is visible from the back of the stand.
In brief
SquadIvan Bašić is training like a man with a point to make
Karlo Bartolec 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.
8 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.
Nobody at Astana 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Astana this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
Nobody at Astana 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.
Marin Tomasov 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.
He looks like a man who lives here now rather than one who is working here. It took most of a season, and at Astana the difference is visible from the back of the stand.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Astana this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Nobody at Astana 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.
“I did not come here to warm up in front of people.” He is out of contract eventually, he is old enough to count the weeks, and Astana will have to give him a reason to stay or an exit.
8 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.
Shohruh Ahmedov 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.
Nobody at Astana 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.
1 kept out in the shoot-out, and a stadium that will still be describing them in twenty years. A goalkeeper only needs one of these to be remembered forever.
At 39 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 9.07 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Player ratings7 Sep 2026
Nūrali Zhaqsylyq, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 8.16
A mark of 8.16 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Every club in football pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time somebody has tried it.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 21-year-old it feels ownership of. Nūrali Zhaqsylyq 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.
Marin Tomasov 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.
There is a level at which a footballer stops being tested and starts being contained, and he reached it some time ago. Astana know it, and so does everybody who watches him.
Some goals win a match and some take one off somebody else. Abdoulaye Diarra scored in the 89th minute, Okzhetpes had already begun thinking about the journey home, and Astana took the lot.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Astana this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Kairat will keep picking him until June and will get nothing for him after it. Luís Mata has pre-agreed a move to Astana, and the only people who lose in that arrangement are the ones who let the contract run down.
Marked 8.98 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Nobody at Astana 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.
Karlo Bartolec 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.
Kairat will keep picking him until June and will get nothing for him after it. Jorginho has pre-agreed a move to Astana, and the only people who lose in that arrangement are the ones who let the contract run down.
Jahongir Mamatqulov is 20, and Astana 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.
In brief
Squad5 new faces, and Astana are still learning each other
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. David Atanga is living that version at Astana, and it tends to show in the first month.
Marin Tomasov 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.
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.
36 months left and silence from upstairs — no offer, no talks, nothing for his people to answer. Clubs that let a calendar do their negotiating usually end up negotiating with the calendar.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Astana, another week without a signature from Stanislav Basmanov.
There is a level at which a footballer stops being tested and starts being contained, and he reached it some time ago. Astana know it, and so does everybody who watches him.
31 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.
24 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Astana this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
20 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.
36 months left and silence from upstairs — no offer, no talks, nothing for his people to answer. Clubs that let a calendar do their negotiating usually end up negotiating with the calendar.