By Tony Attwood
- Arsenal’s return to the Champions League, with finishing top of the league the aim
- How Arsenal is being undermined from without
It is difficult to imagine a much greater contrast than we can see between Arsenal’s last three games and the match today. Arsenal beat Internationale 1-3 away in the Champions League, then lost 2-3 at home to Manchester United in the Premier League, and now face FC Kairat Almaty again in the Champions League.
Қайрат» футбол клубы, to give them their correct name (I think) are the champions of Kazakhstan are the big rivals of FC Astana, and the games between the two are known (apparently) among fans as the Two Capitals Derby. Crowds in the league generally range from 10,000 to 20,000 people for league games.
As noted previously, our opponents today play their league season through the spring, sumemr ande autumn of each year because of the climate. In last year’s campaign, Kairat Almaty won the league by two points, having won 18 of their 26 games, drawing five and losing three. They scored 53 goals (2.04 a game) and conceded 19 (0.73 a game).
In comparison, this season Arsenal have scored 1.87 goals a game and conceded 0.74 goals a game. So the two defences are about equal, but Kairat have scored more goals. Although I rather suspect that the clubs against whom they are playing are not always of Premier League standard. Although they could probably give Tottenham quite a run for their money.
The league itself was started some 32 years ago, and the title they gained last season was their fifth. The club’s ground holds 23,000, and they play in yellow and black striped shirts, black shorts and black socks. Rather like Manchester United in days past in England, they have collected fans across their country, although many of them will never have seen the team play. Having spent 24 years inthe top division of Soviet Union football, they are sometimes called “The Nation’s Team”.
In the late 1990s, the Ministry of Defence of Kazakhstan became the official sponsor of the club. However, a significant number of members of the club did not like the link with the military, and so the club split into two. One was known as the Kairat Sports and Health Professional Football Club, and they moved into the first division, while the other was Kairat SHPFC. That clubwas sponsored by the military authorities in the country, and they moved into the Premier League.
Meanwhile, Arsenal of course, are coming into the match on the back of losing a home game and general commentaries in the media that the defeat therein marks the start of their decline. So anything other than a clear win tonight will be greeted with rejoicing in the media, who will probably proclaim the absolute demise of Arsenal and, of course, the imminent rise to the top of Manchester City. There will also probably be a public holiday and the crowning of the ManC manager as pope.
Certainly, even without frivolity, anything other than a clear Arsenal win will be headline news. Arsenal don’t have to win in order to go through to the next round – Barcelona, in ninth position in the Champions League, have only 13 points to Arsenal’s 21, and so can’t possibly overtake Arsenal. But it would be good to win all eight games in this stage of the Champions League. Something to celebrate I think.
Liverpool last season gained 21 points from seven wins and a defeat, and prior to that the clubs were in groups and only played six games each so this would be a first. In 2023/24 Real Madrid did win all six of their group games, so Arsenal have already overtaken that, and winning all eight would be something that would go down in Champions League history.
But to return to our opposition tonight… In the past, there was a move for the Ministry of Defence of Kazakhstan to sponsor the team, but there was a lot of unhappiness about the move within the club, and it was as a result of this disagreement that the club split in two.
Thus, we now have Kairat Sports and Health Professional Football Club (known generally as Kairat SHPFC), and Kairat-CSKA, the latter being sponsored by the military – and it is this team that went into the Kazakhstan First Division and from there won promotion to the Premier League. The two separate clubs, however, did not continue their rivalry, and in March 2001, they reunified and it is this reunified team that Arsenal are playing tonight.
This is the first ever game between Arsenal and either the unified club or the clubs when they split in two, so of our normal review of historic matches between the two clubs tonight, we have nothing. However, cold weather has been arranged in order to make the visitors feel more at home.
