Kairat Almaty's Road to the UEFA Champions League: Challenging but Sweet

Kairat Almaty, a football team from Kazakhstan, made history by reaching the UEFA Champions League group stage for the first time in the 2025/26 season.

After finishing top of the Kazakhstan Premier League in the 2024/25 season, Kairat Almaty represented Kazakhstan in the 2025/26 UEFA Champions League qualifying rounds.

At the start of these qualifiers, Kairat Almaty was largely overlooked by experts and fans alike due to Kazakhstan's relatively low profile in European football. Expectations for their progression to the Champions League group stage were minimal, let alone achieving positive results in the qualifiers. However, the Kazakh side managed to write a new chapter in the history of Europe's most prestigious club competition.

A Challenging Beginning in the Qualifiers

In the first qualifying round, Kairat Almaty performed excellently by drawing with Olimpija in the first leg and then defeating them 2-0 at home to advance.

In the second round, the Kazakh team suffered a 0-2 loss away to KuPS, seemingly ending their hopes of reaching the Champions League group stage. Yet, in the home leg, Rafael Urazbakhtin’s squad staged an impressive comeback with a 3-0 victory, enough to continue their fairy tale run.

Entering the third round, Kairat Almaty maintained their momentum by winning 1-0 at home before traveling to Slovakia.

There, they lost 0-1 after 120 minutes, pushing the tie to a penalty shootout. Despite the pressure from thousands of Slovakian fans, the Kazakh team showed great composure by converting 4 out of 5 penalties compared to their opponents’ three, securing their place in the final qualifying match.

The "Final" That Resonated Worldwide

In the decisive match, Kairat Almaty faced Celtic, a club regularly appearing in the Champions League group stages and regarded as the greatest in Scottish football history.

Once again, Kairat Almaty was considered the underdog against Celtic due to the latter’s stature and squad strength. Nonetheless, the journey to this final served as motivation for Kairat’s players to create one of the biggest shocks in UEFA Champions League history.

In the first leg in Scotland, Rafael Urazbakhtin’s team showed resilience against the home side’s strength, managing a goalless draw.

Back on home soil with passionate support, Kairat Almaty continued to challenge Celtic evenly and forced the match into a decisive penalty shootout.

In the shootout, Temirlan Anarbekov, Kairat’s second-choice goalkeeper, became the hero by saving three penalties from Adam Idah, Luke McCowan, and Daizen Maeda, securing the team’s spot in the UEFA Champions League group stage. Kairat Almaty became the second Kazakh club to reach Europe’s top club competition, a decade after Astana did so in the 2015/16 season.

"Challenges" Await the European Giants

Beyond causing a major upset this season, Kairat Almaty has also become a daunting opponent for many clubs, not only because of their on-field skills but also due to their unique geographic location.

Specifically, Kairat’s home base is in Almaty, a city located on the eastern edge of the Eurasian continent. The distance from there to major European football hubs is vast, ranging from 5,000 to over 6,000 kilometers.

For example, the trip from Almaty to Munich is about 4,900 km, to Paris 5,500 km, while London and Manchester are approximately 5,600 and 5,650 km away, respectively. Other destinations like Liverpool and Barcelona increase to 5,700 and 5,900 km, and Madrid is nearly 6,400 km away.

This means any team drawn with Kairat must endure long, exhausting journeys. Interestingly, Almaty is geographically closer to Tokyo, Japan, than to Madrid, Spain, highlighting the Kazakh club’s relative isolation.

These lengthy flights to Almaty not only drain players’ energy but also disrupt their match preparations. In the demanding Champions League schedule, spending many hours traveling puts visiting teams at a significant disadvantage when playing in Kazakhstan.

Experts note that travel times of over ten hours to Almaty directly affect visiting teams’ recovery and performance. Conversely, Kairat fully leverages their home advantage, as opponents arrive fatigued, jet-lagged, and facing different weather conditions—factors that create a considerable competitive edge.

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