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.
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.
Erkin Tapalov 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.
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.
Squad14 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.
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.
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.
Erkin Tapalov 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.
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.
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
MarketKairat may not be able to give Edmilson what he wants
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.
A shoot-out is remembered by its ending, and this one ends with Sherkhan Kalmurza: 2 kept out, and a set of supporters who will describe every one of them for the next twenty years.
Eli Dasa 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.
Marked 8.68 — 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.
Marked 8.24 — 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.
1 months left, and both sides know what that means: every week without a signature, the fee Kairat could ask drops and the wages Jorginho 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 Kairat this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Jorginho trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
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 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.
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 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.
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.
Squad2 Nov 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 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.
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.
2 months left, and both sides know what that means: every week without a signature, the fee Kairat could ask drops and the wages Jorginho can ask rise.
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 standards have slipped, and in a building where everybody watches everybody it has not gone unremarked. This is how a player loses a place before he loses one.
Eli Dasa 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.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Words at Kairat training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Erkin Tapalov 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 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.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Kairat have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
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.
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
Eli Dasa 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.
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.
Squad21 Sep 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.
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.
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.
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 Kairat, another week without a signature from Dan Glazer.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Edmilson provided it, and the 8.71 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
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.
3 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
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.
At 22 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.
Nobody makes a documentary about a hamstring and everybody in the game fears one. Kairat will be careful with the return date, because the second one is always worse than the first.
“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.
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.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Words at Kairat training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Erkin Tapalov 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.
There is no crueller way to lose a football match. Kairat scored in the 117th minute, the restart barely happened, and the away end was still standing when the whistle went.
The offer from Lokomotiv Moscow for Temirlan Anarbekov 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 Kairat this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
The offer from Astana for Olzhas Baibek 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.
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.
Eli Dasa 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.
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.
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 Kairat, and it tends to show in the first month.
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Jorginho 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.
Eli Dasa 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 were 87 minutes on the clock and Astana had all but banked the point. Football rarely reads the room, and Kairat did not stop to explain themselves.
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.
At 22 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.
“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 Dan Glazer.