Kazakhstan's Kairat heads to Portugal for UEFA Champions League battle

The team flew on a direct charter from Almaty to Lisbon, where on September 18 (just past midnight on September 19 in Kazakhstan) they will make their debut in the main round of the UEFA Champions League against Sporting.

The match will be officiated by a Polish refereeing team, with Damian Sylwestrzak as the main referee, assisted by Pawel Sokolnicki and Adam Karasewicz. Tomasz Kwiatkowski will serve as the video assistant referee.

Although Sporting ranks 23rd in the UEFA club standings compared to Kairat’s 148th, statistics published on UEFA’s official website suggest the Kazakh champions have a promising chance of earning points in the upcoming clash.

The Sporting–Kairat encounter will be the first meeting between the two clubs, and Kairat’s first-ever match against a Portuguese team.

Historically, Sporting has already faced a Kazakh club — FC Astana in the 2017/18 Europa League play-off round. Sporting won the first leg in Kazakhstan 3–1, while the return match in Lisbon ended in a thrilling 3–3 draw.

Among other encouraging signs for Kairat are recent statistics.

UEFA noted that Sporting has failed to win any of its last six Champions League matches (2 draws, 4 losses).

Kairat, meanwhile, has lost only two of its eight qualifying matches in the 2025/26 season (3 wins, 3 draws) and kept four consecutive clean sheets in qualification.

Sporting is entering its 12th match in the Champions League main round and its fourth appearance in five seasons. Last year, Sporting finished 23rd overall in the main stage (3 wins, 2 draws, 3 losses), bowing out in the play-offs against Borussia Dortmund (0–3 at home, 0–0 away).

The Lisbon club has also won its opening group-stage fixture in three of the last four Champions League campaigns, starting the 2024/25 season with a 2–0 home victory over Lille.

For Kairat, this marks their first-ever appearance in the Champions League main round. Until now, only Astana had achieved the same feat, doing so 10 years earlier in the 2015/16 season.

This is just the third Champions League campaign in Kairat’s history. In 2005/06, they exited in the first qualifying round, and in 2021/22 in the second.

Kairat’s only group-stage appearance in UEFA competitions came in the 2021/22 Europa Conference League, where they finished bottom of their group (2 draws, 4 defeats).

This season, Kairat advanced past Olimpija Ljubljana in the first qualifying round (1–1 away, 2–0 home), KuPS in the second (0–2 away, 3–0 home), and Slovan Bratislava in the third (1–0 home, 0–1 away, 4–3 on penalties). In the play-off round, after two goalless legs, they eliminated Celtic on penalties with a 3–2 victory.

As reported earlier, official ticket prices for Kairat vs Real Madrid match were announced.