Jonathan Wilson
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While the Kazakhstan national side languishes 145th in the world, the country’s leading club will become the first Kazakh side to play a Champions League group match, against Benfica on Tuesday
On Wednesday, the players of FC Astana will board a plane in Lisbon and fly east for 3830 miles to get home. To put that in context, that’s 400 miles further than flying from London to New York. If they drove (non-stop), the journey would take them 77 hours and take them through nine countries and five time zones. It is, in short, a long way. But those players will make the journey having made history, as the first Kazakh side to play in the group stage of the Champions League.
That’s still far from vindicating the decision the Kazakh federation (KSF) made in 2002 to apply to join Uefa, but it is, perhaps, a start. Although in July 2002 Zhenis Astana took the lead after eight minutes away to the Moldovan side Sheriff in the first European tie contested by a Kazakh club, progress has been slow. Tobol Kostanay won one of the three Intertoto Cups in 2007, but it wasn’t until 2013-14 that Shakhter Karagandy became the first Kazakh club to reach the group stage of the Europa League. As Celtic fans will remember, they were very close to the group stage of the Champions League that season, winning the home leg of their play-off 2-0, only to go down 3-0 at Parkhead.
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On Wednesday, the players of FC Astana will board a plane in Lisbon and fly east for 3830 miles to get home. To put that in context, that’s 400 miles further than flying from London to New York. If they drove (non-stop), the journey would take them 77 hours and take them through nine countries and five time zones. It is, in short, a long way. But those players will make the journey having made history, as the first Kazakh side to play in the group stage of the Champions League.
That’s still far from vindicating the decision the Kazakh federation (KSF) made in 2002 to apply to join Uefa, but it is, perhaps, a start. Although in July 2002 Zhenis Astana took the lead after eight minutes away to the Moldovan side Sheriff in the first European tie contested by a Kazakh club, progress has been slow. Tobol Kostanay won one of the three Intertoto Cups in 2007, but it wasn’t until 2013-14 that Shakhter Karagandy became the first Kazakh club to reach the group stage of the Europa League. As Celtic fans will remember, they were very close to the group stage of the Champions League that season, winning the home leg of their play-off 2-0, only to go down 3-0 at Parkhead.
Continue reading...
More...