Football in Kazakhstan
Football arrived in Kazakhstan in 1913 when the game enjoyed a real boom in the city of Semipalatinsk. Russian merchant Nikolaj Kupriyanov had brought some balls over from Moscow and the local youth quickly took to the sport.
Prisoners of war
While the game remained unknown outside of Semipalatinsk, inside the city it flourished and 15 teams were formed including FC Olimp, FC Lastochki, FC Neptun and FC Yarysh. The latter were the first club to play an international match, against a team of prisoners during the first world war.
Iron curtain
Kazakhstan's first national team was put together in 1928. The squad competed at the Spartakiada Games in Kazan, for USSR nations, autonomies and regions, and finished second. In 1959, the Football Federation of Kazakh SSR was formed, and it later became a member of UEFA as part of the USSR Football Federation. Kazakh players often represented the Soviet Union in major qualifying tournaments, and two of them - forward Aleksandr Khapsalis and defender Aleksandr Kadejkin - became European champions with the USSR's Under-19 team.
Youth progress
Kazakhstan played for the first time in an official FIFA tournament in the 1998 World Cup qualifiers. The national team made it through to the second qualifying stage, beating Iraq and Pakistan home and away, their best result to this date. The first success of the youth categories came in 1994, when Kazakhstan's Under-19 squad qualified for the Asian Championship. Four years later, the team repeated that result and finished fourth in the final stage, winning a place at the FIFA World Youth Championship. The Asian Football Confederation (AFC) then recognized U19 coach Vladimir Fomichev as the best Asian coach in 1998.
Olympic champion
In 1988 FC Kairat Almaty midfielder Evgeni Jarovenko became the first and only Kazakh Olympic football champion playing for the USSR team. Kazakhstan had good results in the qualifiers for the last two Olympics, winning the first qualifying stage both times. In 1995, FC Yelimai Semey forward Oleg Litvinenko finished as leading scorer in the tournament with ten goals. He was recognised as the best Asian player that same year.
Developing football
In June 1999, Fomichev won his second award as Asian coach of the season. After working with the U19 team, the manager took control of the Olympic squad, and Kazakhstan made it through to the second qualifying stage for the 2000 Olympics under his guidance. Later that year, in November, Kairat and Olympic team defender Andrei Travin was named the best player in Asia by the AFC. FIFA also put Kazakhstan among the ten countries that had made the most progress in football development in 1999.
Asian achievements
In 2000, the AFC awarded FC Irtysh Pavlodar midfielder Andrei Miroshnichenko a prize for the best goal of the season - scored in an Asian Champions' Cup quarter-final against FC Police Club Bagdad (Iraq). The confederation also selected Kairat's Ruslan Baltiyev for the Asian all-star team that played against Iran in a match celebrating Iranian independence. And in March 2001, Irtysh coach Leonid Nazarenko became Asian coach of the year after helping his side reach the semi-finals of the Asian Champions' Cup, the best Kazakhstan achievement in official Asian competition.
