You're reading: Kazakhstan’s football looks to Europe for growth

TALGAR, Kazakhstan - Drive 300 kilometres from the Kazakh national team's training complex and you will reach China. But when it comes to soccer, the former Soviet republic prefers to look the other way: Europe.

Ten years have passed since Kazakhstan, an oil-rich country
five times the size of France, joined UEFA. Within the next
decade, the country hopes a German-inspired youth development
plan will have it knocking on the door of a major tournament.

“I wouldn’t say Asian teams are weaker opponents – there are
a lot of good teams – but it’s better to be in Europe,” Kairat
Nurdauletov, the national team captain, told Reuters.

“When you play at Wembley or in Turkey, when the stadium is
full and you can’t hear yourself think, that’s when you really
feel like you’re a footballer,” the 29-year-old midfielder said.

Kazakhstan joined UEFA in April 2002, having resigned its
membership of the Asian Football Confederation the previous
year. Nurdauletov was an unused substitute during the match he
describes as Kazakhstan’s biggest achievement since: a 2-1
defeat of Serbia in March 2007.

The last decade, however, has also been dogged by political
intrigue. The former head of the football federation, President
Nursultan Nazarbayev’s former son-in-law Rakhat Aliyev, fled the
country after falling out with Kazakhstan’s powerful leader.

The new-look federation has recently embarked on a 10-year
plan to develop youth football, based on the German model. The
German Football Federation will even supervise a programme to
install a youth centre at every Premier League club next year.

Clubs will pay qualified coaches around $1,000 per month to
develop children from the age of 10. The federation expects the
first crop of trainees to break into the national youth side in
five years.

“In Germany, it’s normal for every club to have something
like this,” said midfielder Heinrich Schmidtgal. “Here, they’re
a few years behind, but something is being done.”

The countries are bonded by the large ethnic German
population inherited by Kazakhstan after independence from the
Soviet Union, descendents of the Volga Germans exiled to the
steppe by Soviet leader Josef Stalin after World War Two.

Schmidtgal, 26, was born in Kazakhstan but spent most of his
childhood in Germany. His career in the Bundesliga, where he
plays for newly promoted Greuther Fuerth, is a frequent topic of
conversation with team mates in the Kazakh national side.

“I tell them the level is very high, that you have no time
in the game to think about what you’re going to do,” he said.

Kazakhstan will travel to Germany in March 2013, hoping for
a better result than the 4-0 away defeat against the same
opponents in the 2012 European Championship qualifying rounds.

“It’s a special game for me,” said Schmidtgal. “The game
will be only five kilometres from my home there, in Nuremberg.”

RELUCTANT OUTSIDERS

Germany are favourites to top a World Cup qualifying group
that also includes Sweden, Austria and Ireland. Kazakhstan’s
modest goal is to finish above the Faroe Islands, ranked 12
rungs below their 142nd place in the latest FIFA world rankings.

“We are outsiders,” said the country’s Czech coach, Miroslav
Beranek, “but we don’t want to play like outsiders.”

Beranek, 52, was assistant to revered coach Karel Brueckner
for the swashbuckling Czech side captained by Pavel Nedved that
reached the semi-finals of the 2004 European Championships.

He communicates in accented Russian, rolling passes to his
players during shooting practice at the modern training complex
beneath the 4,000-metre peaks of the Tien Shan mountain range.

The secluded Talgar complex, with a hotel, gym and massage
rooms, is part of the federation’s investment in new facilities.
Since 2009, home matches have been played at the 30,000-capacity
Astana Arena, a stadium in keeping with the futuristic skyline
of a capital city built on abundant oil wealth.

A separate youth development programme brokered by
Nazarbayev has also sent some of Kazakhstan’s most promising
teenagers to the Ole Brasil football academy in Sao Paulo state.

Rauan Sariyev, one of the original batch of 26 teenagers
sent in 2009, signed for leading Brazilian club Atletico Mineiro
before this year moving to Botafogo SP. The next group of
14-year-olds will depart for Sao Paulo by the end of this year.

Despite such lofty ambitions, Kazakhstan still ranks far
below its Central Asian neighbour Uzbekistan. Seventieth in the
FIFA world rankings, Uzbekistan is competing in the final round
of World Cup qualifiers in the Asian region.

Kazakh officials argue that Uzbekistan’s ranking, relative
to their own, is boosted by a greater amount of matches against
weaker opposition. Experience gained by playing Europe’s leading
sides will improve the level of Kazakh football, they say.

The expansion of the 2016 European Championship to include
24 teams, eight more than in previous tournaments, has also
given a sliver of hope that qualification might be within reach.

“That target is a few years away, but for every small team
it’s a big chance to get into the Euros,” said Schmidtgal.

STRONGER LEAGUE

When Kazakhstan was lobbying for UEFA membership a decade
ago, it argued the fact that 12 percent of its territory lies in
Europe. Using the same argument, Turkey is three percent
European.

The country’s Soviet heritage also played a role. For a
large proportion of Kazakhstan’s 17 million people, Russian is
still the first language.

A source in the federation compared the standard of today’s
Kazakh Premier League to its Russian equivalent six or seven
years ago. Following in Russia‘s footsteps, Kazakhstan will also
switch to an autumn-spring calendar from next season.

Wages at the top clubs in the Kazakh Premier League average
about $15,000 a month, although the highest-paid players can
earn double that amount, the source said. Further down the
league table, average wages are closer to $6,000-7,000 a month.

“We want to evolve in the same way as European countries,”
Sayan Khamitzhanov, the federation’s first vice-president, said
in a recent interview with local newspaper Novoye Pokoleniye.

“We need to think about synchronising our transfer windows,
mid-season breaks and pre-season tournaments with the rest of
European football,” he said in the interview.

Beranek, who led Debrecen to the Hungarian championship in
2007, highlighted the performance of Kazakh clubs in European
competition this season as a sign of progress.

Czech side Slovan Liberec needed an away goal in the final
minute of extra time to squeeze past Shakhtyor Karaganda 2-1 on
aggregate in the Champions League second qualifying round.

Norway’s Rosenborg Trondheim also scored a last-minute goal
to eliminate Ordabasy Shymkent from the Europa League qualifying
rounds. FK Aktobe went a round further, denied a place in the
group stages by a 4-2 aggregate defeat to Belgium’s Racing Genk.

“This shows that the teams are improving,” said Beranek.
“Football has developed a lot in the 18 months that I’ve been
here, the quality of the game, the tempo.”

Nurdauletov, the captain, says extra motivation will come
from the Kazakh Olympic team that returned from London as
national heroes after winning seven gold medals.

“It put Kazakhstan on the map,” he said. “It’s an incentive
for us. We want to be recognised not only for our weightlifters
and boxers, but for our football.”