From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad28 Sep 2026
Azat Logvinenko 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.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Tempers go at Irtysh
Ordabasy Suyumbayev 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.
Loan watch28 Sep 2026
“I did not go to Yokohama F. Marinos to sit and watch. I want to come back to Irtysh and fight for my place.” 2 appearances in 6 matches say the rest.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad21 Sep 2026
Tempers go at Irtysh
Nurbol Tymoshchuk 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.
Squad21 Sep 2026
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Abzal Islamkhan 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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad14 Sep 2026
Tempers go at Irtysh
Ädilkhan Taňzharyqov 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.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Azat Logvinenko 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.
Loan watch14 Sep 2026
“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 Irtysh, and 0 appearances in 5 say he has earned the hearing.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market7 Sep 2026
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Irtysh can pretend not to have heard.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Tempers go at Irtysh
Ğafurzhan Süiimbaev 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.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Serikzhan Shomko 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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market31 Aug 2026
“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 Irtysh, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Words at Irtysh training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Serikzhan Shomko 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.
Squad31 Aug 2026
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Match19 Aug 2026
The small margins put Irtysh out
Out, 1‑1 to Kairat, and the long argument about which of the small moments decided it. The league is all there is now, and everybody knows it.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 31. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad24 Aug 2026
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.
Market24 Aug 2026
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Irtysh can pretend not to have heard.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Words at Irtysh training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Azat Logvinenko 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.
Squad24 Aug 2026
The manager makes an example of Erbol Postnikov
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Twelve yards, a goalkeeper guessing, and it still did not go in. He will take the next one, and every soul in the ground will hold their breath.
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 Irtysh this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Market24 Aug 2026
Both sides expect a conversation in the coming days. Irtysh will name a price, and everything after that is arithmetic.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
There is exactly one of these per career and it does not usually go like this. 0 on the scoresheet, 7.49 beside the name, and a crowd that had never seen him before chanting it by the end.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
At 34 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 7.91 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Azat Logvinenko 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.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Tempers go at Irtysh
Ordabasy Suyumbayev 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.
Squad17 Aug 2026
The manager makes an example of Azat Logvinenko
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Squad17 Aug 2026
There is a level at which a footballer stops being tested and starts being contained, and he reached it some time ago. Irtysh know it, and so does everybody who watches him.
Loan watch17 Aug 2026
“I did not go to Yokohama F. Marinos to sit and watch. I want to come back to Irtysh and fight for my place.” 1 appearances in 0 matches say the rest.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
4 shots, and a count that reads like a good afternoon until you check the other column. Strikers survive weeks like this on the understanding that the chances keep arriving; the day they stop is the day it becomes a problem.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad10 Aug 2026
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Gafurzhan Abiken commits to Irtysh for another 4 years.
Market10 Aug 2026
The name of Azat Tagybergen has come up in conversations Irtysh were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Words at Irtysh training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Serikzhan Shomko 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.
Squad10 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 Irtysh this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad10 Aug 2026
There is a level at which a footballer stops being tested and starts being contained, and he reached it some time ago. Irtysh know it, and so does everybody who watches him.
Market10 Aug 2026
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Timur Dosmagambetov has his answer from Irtysh; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
The terraces3 Aug 2026
The ground has had enough
“We travel everywhere and we get this.” 11 of the 31 senior players heard it walking off, and the ones who did not hear it were not playing.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Player ratings3 Aug 2026
Up for the corner, and Azat Logvinenko delivers — 7.98
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Azat Logvinenko scored, was marked 7.98, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
Player ratings3 Aug 2026
A first appearance Nurbol Postnikov will want to forget — 5.68
Everybody's debut is one of two stories and this was the other one. 5.68, and the only consolation available is that nobody's career has ever been decided by ninety minutes in a shirt he had just been given.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Serikzhan Shomko 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.
Match1 Aug 2026
Ordabasy left with the points after a 1‑2 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Tempers go at Irtysh
Nurbol Tymoshchuk 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.
Squad3 Aug 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Gafurzhan Abiken, and the manager let it.
Player ratings3 Aug 2026
7 shots, and a count that reads like a good afternoon until you check the other column. Strikers survive weeks like this on the understanding that the chances keep arriving; the day they stop is the day it becomes a problem.