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.
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Ramazan Kärimov has written the date down.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager plants his flag on Marin Tomasov
Karlo Bartolec and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Nurali Islamkhan 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. 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.
In brief
The dugoutIan Vorogovskiy has become a man the manager trusts
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.
“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 Khalid Shakhtiev.
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
Marin Tomasov and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Älibek Qasym is on it.
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
The message was aimed at the stands as much as the dressing room: Nūrali Zhaqsylyq plays, and the argument is closed until the manager decides otherwise.
In brief
SquadNikola Burić is the talk of the training ground
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 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.
Karlo Bartolec and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Timur Vorogovskiy 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.
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 manager has re-ordered his thinking and Ramazan Kärimov has come out of it lower. He will be told it is temporary, and the players who have heard that before will avoid his eye.
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.
Karlo Bartolec 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.
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Astana is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Marin Tomasov and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
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 asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
Numbers do not stay secret in a dressing room. He is not asking for more than he is worth; he is asking why somebody beside him is worth more, and Astana have no good answer.
This is the season the town will measure the next twenty against. The trophy travels home with the squad, and the route through the streets was agreed days ago.
4 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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Branimir Kalaica will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Astana the goodbyes have quietly begun.
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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Mükhammedzhan Seisen trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
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.
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.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Ordabasy Vorogovskiy 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. Maxim Baizhanov 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.
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.
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Ramazan Kärimov has written the date down.
2 months left, and both sides know what that means: every week without a signature, the fee Astana could ask drops and the wages Branimir Kalaica can ask rise.
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.
It will be explained as a change for the team and it may even be one. Nobody who has worn one believes that, and neither does the man who has just had it taken away.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Astana. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Branimir Kalaica will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Astana the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Fedor Smolov 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.
Fedor Smolov and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Ian Vorogovskiy is on it.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Astana. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Gafurzhan Tagybergen is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
7 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Marin Tomasov is on it.
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Älibek Qasym has written the date down.
A call-up flatters the player and the club that produced him in the same breath. Astana would like him back in one piece and know they will not be consulted.
3 months left, and both sides know what that means: every week without a signature, the fee Astana could ask drops and the wages Branimir Kalaica can ask rise.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Astana they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
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.
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.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Astana they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Astana ran out of time with Pakhtakor. The paperwork was open when the deadline passed, and a transfer that was almost done is now a transfer that never happened.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Godoy Cruz keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
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.
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.
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 asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Astana have done the hard part with Pakhtakor, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
Boardroom14 Sep 2026
Astana close the window on a squad of their own making
20 in and 1 out, and no more changes for months. The manager has what he has, the supporters have their opinion of it, and the table will have the last word.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Atyrau have kept their man, and Astana go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Maxim Tymoshchuk 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.
Squad14 Sep 2026
8 new faces, and Astana are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Marin Tomasov is on it.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Astana they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Astana have gone to Pakhtakor with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Cerro Porteno is saying, and nobody at Astana is enjoying the guessing.
Ordabasy did not want to sell and the number is why they did. $360.0K for Victor Mudrac, and the expectation that arrives with him is the kind no amount of settling-in period softens.
The rules permit it and it stings anyway. Ivan Bašić has agreed terms with Shakhter 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 Astana this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Astana they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Noah keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
He will play here until the summer and then walk out of the door for free, having already signed elsewhere. Supporters will manage the first part of that sentence; it is the second they will struggle with.
Fedor Smolov 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 paperwork is done long before the player is. Guy-Marcelin Kilama has agreed terms to come here when his current deal runs out, which means Astana have spent a summer's transfer budget on a phone call.
Astana asked and Pyunik said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Astana have made the call to Cerro Porteno. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
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 on the scoresheet on his first appearance and a mark of 7.32 beside it. Most debuts are got through; this one was enjoyed, by him and by everybody watching it.
Successful dribbles: 31. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Astana can pretend not to have heard.
Astana had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Godoy Cruz, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
Fedor Smolov and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Astana asked and Ordabasy said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Yegor Vedernikov has, at Astana, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
At 16 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at APOEL is saying, and nobody at Astana is enjoying the guessing.
A loan enquiry to Alashkert: cover, or a look at somebody the club cannot afford to buy yet. Either way the answer will come back inside the week.
Squad17 Aug 2026
5 new faces, and Astana are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
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.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Pyunik keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Kairat have kept their man, and Astana go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
The paperwork is done long before the player is. Yurii Vakulko has agreed terms to come here when his current deal runs out, which means Astana have spent a summer's transfer budget on a phone call.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Rinat Nurgaliev 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.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Abzal Suyumbayev 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. Timur Kuat 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.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Maxim Postnikov is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
The offer from Nasaf for Ivan Bašić 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 and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Tobol will keep picking him until June and will get nothing for him after it. Nauryzbek Zhagorov 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.
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.
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.