Almaty Gears Up to Host Real Madrid’s Galácticos
Football fans across Kazakhstan are preparing for arguably the biggest sporting occasion in the country’s history on Tuesday. Kairat Almaty play their first ever home Champions League game against the mighty Real Madrid at the Almaty Central Stadium. The arrival of Madrid’s Galácticos has electrified the city, with fans camping outside the Intercontinental Hotel in Almaty just to catch a glimpse of the visiting superstars. Kairat lost their first match 4-1 to Sporting Lisbon, a scoreline that the management felt didn’t do justice to a spirited performance. “The team lost focus for about five minutes, conceding three goals, but never gave up and scored a goal in the Champions League – the first in our club’s history. That experience is valuable,” Kairat Boranbaev, the club’s president, told The Times of Central Asia at the club’s training complex this week. “We understand that the Champions League has the 36 best teams in Europe, so the level is extremely high. We don’t stress about the result; the team gains huge experience.” Boranbaev said, proudly adding that six Kairat academy products played in the match. [caption id="attachment_36737" align="aligncenter" width="1600"] Kairat Almaty President, Kairat Boranbaev; image: TCA, Joe Luc Barnes[/caption] A Ten-Year Journey The fifty-nine-year-old president and business magnate is not surprised his club has reached the higher echelons of European football. “This strategic work was built more than ten years ago, and we have been moving toward it all these years. I think it’s a natural result, a systematic effort by our club.” Boranbaev says that when he took over the club’s presidency in 2012, the facilities were well below par. Kairat is traditionally Kazakhstan’s most storied club, their famed black-and-yellow jerseys representing all-Kazakhstan in the Soviet Top League in the communist years. But they had fallen on hard times in the independence era, even splitting into two rival clubs for a time. “When we arrived, there was only one burned-down base from Soviet times,” Boranbaev told TCA. “We started developing, learning what football really is. Today, all the infrastructure is established, youth player development is in place, and the coaching staff training is organized. That’s why the results we’ve achieved today are the outcome of years of stable, professional management.” [caption id="attachment_36738" align="aligncenter" width="1600"] Kairat Almaty's third qualifying round tie against Slovan Bratislava; image: TCA, Joe Luc Barnes[/caption] Nurturing Youth Kairat differs from other Kazakh teams in the emphasis they place on their academy. While clubs such as FK Astana and Aktobe often import talent rather than investing in grassroots football, Kairat aims to develop its own. The club’s most famous academy product is seventeen-year-old Dastan Satpaev, who will move to London side Chelsea upon turning eighteen. But during TCA’s tour of the stadium complex, we bump into the club’s newest teenage star, Sherhan Kalmurza, the eighteen-year-old goalkeeper who has been catapulted into the first XI due to injuries to other senior players. “He’s become famous,” booms Boranbaev. “He now has 40,000 Instagram followers after just two games!” Kairat’s president notes that...
