Historic day for Kairat Almaty!

September 30, 2025 will be one of the most important dates in the history of Kairat Almaty, as today (19:45) this season’s pleasant surprise of the Champions League will host Real Madrid in its first-ever home match in the world’s top club competition.

Kairat, which will also host Olympiacos on December 9 in the League Phase of the Champions League, is based in Almaty, in southeastern Kazakhstan, about 300 km from China. The team lost its opening match of the competition 4–1 to Sporting Lisbon, featuring Fotis Ioannidis and Giorgos Vagiannidis, CE Report quotes ANA-MPA.

In that match, played in the Portuguese capital, the Kazakh side broke a record by covering the greatest distance ever traveled by a team in the Champions League — a 6,900 km (!) flight between Lisbon and Almaty.

By the end of the League Phase, the players of the team from Kazakhstan’s largest city will have traveled the equivalent of a world tour (!), around 45,000 km — a distance greater than the Earth’s circumference.

For European clubs, traveling there poses a logistical challenge. Real Madrid, for example, requires a ten-hour flight to reach Central Asia. With a stadium located 850 meters above sea level, at the foot of mountains reaching up to 5,000 meters, “the air is really different, it has an impact,” said Kairat defender Luís Mata in mid-September. On top of this comes the pollution in Almaty, which can be extreme and particularly bothersome to visitors.

Kairat currently sits 315th in UEFA’s rankings, while its most famous player in history was former Russian international striker Andrey Arshavin, who played for Arsenal in the early 2010s and joined Kairat in 2016.

The gulf between the two teams is immense. According to Transfermarkt, Real Madrid’s squad is valued at €1.4 billion, compared to just €12.7 million for Kairat. Almaty relies on a mix of Brazilians, Portuguese, and mostly homegrown Kazakh talents — including their 18-year-old goalkeeper, who saved a penalty against Sporting.

Much of the spotlight also falls on 17-year-old attacking midfielder Dastan Satpayev, considered Kazakhstan’s brightest football prospect, who is set to join Chelsea next year.

For Kairat, which previously only reached the Europa Conference League group stage (C4) in 2021, the Champions League journey began in early July with endless qualifying rounds against teams from smaller leagues.

The Kazakh side reached the League Phase for the first time in its history after an impressive run — not conceding a single goal at home — eliminating the champions of Slovenia, Finland, Slovakia, and finally Scotland’s Celtic.

“With this historic qualification, we’ve already achieved the best possible, so now we will enjoy it,” said Kairat captain Aleksandr Martinovic triumphantly at the end of August.

And upon learning that Real Madrid would be their next opponent, the 38-year-old defender jokingly suggested they should “buy nets from a fishing store” to try to stop Kylian Mbappé.