The words a physio says slowly. 63 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.
The chase for Alexandr Zuev ended with $760.0K changing hands and Tobol out of reasons to say no. The supporters will judge the fee the only way that matters: on Saturdays.
Aleksa Amanović 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 terraces19 Jul 2027
Ordabasy spend $760.0K on the signing the town wanted
It is the rarest sequence in football: supporters ask for something, and the club goes and does it. $760.0K for Alexandr Zuev, and for one week nobody is complaining about anything.
Squad19 Jul 2027
Léo Natel 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.
9.23. 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.
71 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Ordabasy lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The accountants will call it good business and they will be right, which is not the point anybody outside the boardroom is making. Everton Moraes was one of the reasons people came, and $1.3M does not replace that by itself.
Atyrau paid $1.3M and Ordabasy took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Ordabasy this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Hard to beat is not the same as winning, but 6 matches without defeat is a foundation Ordabasy did not have in the autumn.
Squad12 Jul 2027
Words at Ordabasy training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Léo Natel 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.
Squad12 Jul 2027
The manager has not finished forgetting Bekkhan Shaizada's mistake
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.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 16 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
78 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Ordabasy lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Ordabasy can pretend not to have heard.
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.
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.
Player ratings5 Jul 2027
Dimitar Mitkov 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.
87 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Ordabasy lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The board had gone up, the arguing had started, and then the ball was in the net in the 126th minute. Aktobe will replay every second of the added time for a week.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Ordabasy this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad28 Jun 2027
Words at Ordabasy training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Léo Natel 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.
94 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Ordabasy lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Nūrali Zhaqsylyq provided it, and the 8.44 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
He is going to Aktobe, the club has $1.5M it did not have on Friday, and the phone-ins have already decided how they feel about that. Selling well and selling somebody they loved are not the same skill.
Aleksa Amanović 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.
6 goals in one match, Nūrali Zhaqsylyq on the scoresheet, and a scoreline that will look like a misprint. Neutrals could not have asked more of Ordabasy and Kairat.
Squad21 Jun 2027
Léo Natel 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.
101 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Ordabasy lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The offer from Lokomotiv for Mohamed Niaré 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 Ordabasy this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Player ratings14 Jun 2027
Yurii Vakulko was on a different afternoon to everybody else
9.19. 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.
The terracesThe press cannot get enough of Dimitar Mitkov
45Edition
The Ordabasy Courier
7 Jun 2027
From our football correspondentCrisis
Squad7 Jun 2027
Nikola Antić damages knee ligaments — 109 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 109 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.
Aleksa Amanović 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 Jun 2027
Léo Natel 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 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.
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.
Every touch is being weighed now, in print and everywhere else. Some players grow into that and some are quietly ruined by it, and nobody knows which in advance.
In brief
Player ratingsAn afternoon Dimitar Mitkov will want back
117 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Ordabasy lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Ordabasy can pretend not to have heard.
4 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Ordabasy this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Successful dribbles: 22. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad31 May 2027
Words at Ordabasy training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Léo Natel 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.
Aleksa Amanović 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.
Beaten 0‑2, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Squad24 May 2027
Words at Ordabasy training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Kassim Doumbia 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.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 8 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Squad17 May 2027
Words at Ordabasy training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Léo Natel 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.
Player ratings17 May 2027
Everton Moraes was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.89. 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.
Niv Gabay 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 May 2027
The manager has not finished forgetting Aleksa Amanović's mistake
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.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Guy-Marcelin Kilama signs something — a contract at Ordabasy or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Everton Moraes 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.
Squad10 May 2027
Léo Natel 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 Ordabasy 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 Ordabasy this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Everton Moraes. 2‑1 against Okzhetpes, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Marked 8.56 — 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.
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.
Aleksa Amanović 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.
Successful dribbles: 22. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad26 Apr 2027
Léo Natel 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.
3 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Ordabasy can tell you which week it ends in.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 8 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Aleksa Amanović 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.
Aktobe left with the points after a 0‑1 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Squad19 Apr 2027
Words at Ordabasy training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Yassine Abdelali 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.
5 attempts, none of them in. He got into the right places all afternoon, which is the hard part, and did the easy part badly — and that is the version of a bad day a manager can live with.
The board had gone up, the arguing had started, and then the ball was in the net in the 104th minute. Zhetysu will replay every second of the added time for a week.
The hardest thing about being 19 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Niv Gabay did not need any: 8.04, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
27 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.
At 33 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 7.86 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Léo Natel 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 have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Ordabasy can pretend not to have heard.
The instruction has come from upstairs rather than from the dugout, which is the version of this conversation no manager enjoys. Somebody in that squad is now available whether the man who picks the team thinks so or not.
Aleksa Amanović 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.
Squad5 Apr 2027
Léo Natel 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.
Two goals and a mark of 9.77 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
At 33 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 7.83 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Everybody's debut is one of two stories and this was the other one. 5.80, 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Ordabasy this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Kassim Doumbia, and the manager let it.
Squad29 Mar 2027
Words at Ordabasy training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. David Abagna 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.
Everton Moraes 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 — 22 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
Squad22 Mar 2027
Words at Ordabasy training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Kassim Doumbia 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Ordabasy this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad15 Mar 2027
Words at Ordabasy training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Léo Natel 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Ordabasy can pretend not to have heard.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Ordabasy have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Aleksa Amanović 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.
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.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Talgat Logvinenko 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.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Kairat Suyumbayev 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 was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Ordabasy this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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 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.
Aleksa Amanović 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.
Squad22 Feb 2027
Léo Natel 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.
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 Ordabasy this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“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.
Squad15 Feb 2027
Words at Ordabasy training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. David Abagna 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.
In brief
Squad5 new faces, and Ordabasy are still learning each other
The offer from Astana for Yurii Vakulko 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.
Aleksa Amanović 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.
Sergei Malyi has left for Taraz in a $80.0K deal. The accountants are pleased; the supporters are less certain.
Squad8 Feb 2027
Words at Ordabasy training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Kassim Doumbia 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 accountants will call it good business and they will be right, which is not the point anybody outside the boardroom is making. El'khan Astanov was one of the reasons people came, and $1.4M does not replace that by itself.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Ordabasy this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad1 Feb 2027
Words at Ordabasy training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Léo Natel 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 words a physio says slowly. 14 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.
22 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Ordabasy lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Ordabasy 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. 30 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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 28 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Aleksa Amanović 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.
In brief
SquadLéo Natel falls out with a teammate over standards
38 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Ordabasy lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 35 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Ordabasy this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
In brief
SquadWords at Ordabasy training over how hard people work
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 42 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Aleksa Amanović 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
Léo Natel 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.
In brief
Boardroom243% of the income goes out in wages at Ordabasy
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Ordabasy 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 Ordabasy this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Khaled Bani Zamah is living that version at Ordabasy, and it tends to show in the first month.
In brief
SquadWords at Ordabasy training over how hard people work
Everton Moraes 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.
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.
Nobody at Ordabasy 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 Ordabasy this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad7 Dec 2026
Words at Ordabasy training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Léo Natel 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.
Aleksa Amanović 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.
Squad30 Nov 2026
Léo Natel 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.
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.
Qualification is done, and next season the floodlights come on for something bigger. A stage for the players, oxygen for the accounts and a passport for everybody else.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Ordabasy this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“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.
Squad23 Nov 2026
Words at Ordabasy training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. David Abagna 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.
Aleksa Amanović 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.
Squad16 Nov 2026
Léo Natel 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.
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.
In brief
SquadLéo Natel 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 Ordabasy this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Ordabasy this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Words at Ordabasy training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Léo Natel 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.
22 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Ordabasy lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Aleksa Amanović 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.
7 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.
The words a physio says slowly. 30 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.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Yassine Abdelali has just signed for Ordabasy, and for once the answer mattered.
The words a physio says slowly. 39 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.
Aleksa Amanović 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.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Léo Natel 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.
In brief
BoardroomWages eat 514% of everything Ordabasy earn
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Ordabasy 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.
Aleksa Amanović 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
David Abagna 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Ordabasy can pretend not to have heard.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Words at Ordabasy training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Léo Natel 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.
Squad14 Sep 2026
7 new faces, and Ordabasy 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Ordabasy can pretend not to have heard.
123 minutes played. Ali Abdurahmonov found the finish in time that only existed because of earlier delays, and Tobol went from a point to nothing inside one movement.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Ordabasy will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Everton Moraes 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 Ordabasy will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Ordabasy will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
A shoot-out is remembered by its ending, and this one ends with Bekkhan Shaizada: 1 kept out, and a set of supporters who will describe every one of them for the next twenty years.
28 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.
“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 Ordabasy, and it is not being withdrawn.
The phone has started ringing about El'khan Astanov again, and this time the name on the line is Kairat. Ordabasy are listening politely and promising nothing.
25 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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 43 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Ordabasy this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Ordabasy this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Words at Ordabasy training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. David Abagna 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.
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. Ordabasy will not keep him by pretending otherwise.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Ordabasy can pretend not to have heard.
23 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.
Aleksa Amanović 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.
9.60. 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.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Léo Natel 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.
21 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.