ASTANA — FC Kairat’s head coach Rafael Urazbakhtin said he still struggles to grasp the scale of what his team has achieved: reaching the UEFA Champions League group stage and preparing to face Europe’s top football clubs.
Photo credit: Getty images
“For me, it is something I can’t yet realize,” he told The Astana Times in a comment. “Right now everything feels like a fairytale. Even when I am receiving different interviews, like Xabi Alonso [head coach of Real Madrid] being asked about Kairat, it’s hard to believe. But football shows that anything is possible.”
The Almaty club now prepares for an away opener against Sporting Clube de Portugal on Sept. 18 and a historic home clash with Real Madrid on Sept. 30. Officials expect around 5,000 tourists for the game in Almaty.
FC Kairat’s head coach Rafael Urazbakhtin. Photo credit: fckairat.com
Urazbakhtin acknowledges the challenge ahead.
“Our opponents are very serious and I think our priority is to demonstrate a decent game, and then we will see. We have never played against clubs like this,” he said.
“The only thing I can promise is that we will give everything and aim to put on a worthy performance,” he added
The coach also commented on his players’ performance in the World Cup qualifier game between Kazakhstan and Wales on Sept. 4. Goalkeeper Temirlan Anarbekov, forward Dastan Satpyev, and defender Damir Kasabulat, all from Kairat, are in the national team.
Urazbakhtin stressed that Kairat’s success carries a message beyond.
“Maybe we are showing people that they should believe in their dreams. In life, everything is possible. The main thing is to believe,” he said. “Nobody at the start thought we could make it this far, but we made it.”
Commenting on the upcoming game with Kairat, where Real Madrid will have to travel more than 6,000 kilometers, the team’s head coach Xabi Alonso said it is a “special case.”
“The group is demanding, but the opponents we have also motivate us. [Almaty] is a special case. Let’s see where it fits in, where we’ve been before it, and where we’re going next. It is unusual. We will have to plan the logistics as well as possible,” he said.
Officials say Kazakhstan’s infrastructure is fully prepared to host an event of this scale. The Central Stadium meets UEFA’s fourth-category standards, making it suitable for matches involving Europe’s top clubs.
Our reporter Nagima Abuova discusses in her latest opinion piece why Almaty needs a 50,000 stadium.
