Kazakhstan 2003 Home, matchworn Evgeni Lovchev v Portugal
Kazakhstan 2004-05 Home, matchworn Samat Smakov v Greece
Kazakhstan 2005-06 Away, matchworn Maksat Baizhanov v Denmark
Kazakhstan 2006-07 Home, matchworn Samat Smakov v ???
Kazakhstan 2009-12 Home, matchworn Maksat Baizhanov v Germany
Kazakhstan 2012-14, match prepared Bauyrzhan Dzholchiyev v Austria
Kazakhstan 2014 Home, matchworn? Konstantin Engel v Hungary
Kazakhstan 2014-15 Home, matchworn/prepared Azat Nurgaliyev
Kazakhstan 2014-15 Third, matchworn Toktar Zhangylyshbay v Russia
Kazakhstan 2020-22, matchworn/prepared Islambek Kuat
Kazakhstan 2020-22, matchworn Abzal Beysebekov v North Macedonia
We’ll start off with this Umbro template. Mainly remembered for its use by other teams, such as England, Kazakhstan also used it. White is used for detailing, rather than yellow, sadly, but we see it on the edges of the collar, the sleeve cuffs, the hem, in piping on front and rear and in the stripe down the front. All works to break up any plainness and to highlight the superb old badge. It isn’t the most imaginative shirt the world has ever seen but it works pretty well.
Used solely in friendlies against Poland and then Portugal in 2003, this shirt saw very little use! Kazakhstan lost 3-0 to Poland and then 1-0 to a Portugal side who tried out a young kid called Ronaldo for the first time. He probably didn’t amount to much. Not an auspicious pair of games for the shirt so Kazakhstan continued to play their little game of shirt roulette where for a few years they were terrified of wearing a consistent design.
Next up we have the white accenting conglomerating in the armpits and underside of the sleeves, as well as in a ring around the collar. It leaves a lot of space in a plain colour, and that doesn’t work brilliantly. Asymmetry with the centralised Puma logo is a bit odd but with the old FA logo and deep yellow numbers, it works ok. Interesting, but a bit plain in places.
In late 2004 Kazakhstan realised they’d used their previous Puma shirt for as many as 6 games, leading them to have to change shirts again before they became even vaguely consistent. So we got this design for 3 games, twice in the yellow against Albania in 2004 and Japan in 2005 and once in the blue, against Greece. They successfully lost all 3 games in it, leading them to change shirts again, falling 1-0 to Albania, 3-1 to Greece then 3-0 to Japan. The Greece and Albania results were in 2006 World Cup qualifiers and followed their pattern, with them finishing with only a single point from 12 games.
Diadora break up the plainer shirts with this spectacular effort. Their classic template from the era, we’ve got the high collar, spots around the shoulder and with the Diadora logo, but also blue and white striping down the right sleeve and shoulder. Numbers and logos are all centralised to avoid asymmetry there and it all slots together quite nicely. There’s still perhaps a bit too much of a singular colour but it is definitely an interesting shirt from it. Works in both blue and yellow!
The blue’s typeface was used across their disastrous 2006 qualification campaign. A 12 match campaign facing Ukraine, Turkey, Denmark, Greece, Albania and Georgia, they left with a solitary point. Aside from getting demolished 6-0 by Turkey, they lost all their home matches by a single goal. In their away matches they managed to keep Albania to within a single goal and grabbed their point in Georgia with a 0-0, but otherwise fairly comfortably lost. Absolutely a campaign to forget for the Kazakhs.
While the same as their 2005-06 shirt, they changed the typeface for the numbers for the Euro 2008 qualifiers. Eligible for the Euros for the first time, they were drawn into the joint largest UEFA group ever, with Poland, Portugal, Serbia, Finland, Belgium, Armenia and Azerbaijan. They finished 6th from 8 teams, though Armenia and Azerbaijan didn’t play each other so 7th would’ve been plausible. 5 of their 8 losses came by a single goal, they beat Serbia at home and Azerbaijan away but 4 draws (twice against Belgium) kept them towards the bottom of the table. They only didn’t concede in their away 0-0 draw to Belgium and 1-0 loss against Azerbaijan.
We return to Umbro, with this great blue and yellow effort. Here, the white accenting works well, adding to the use of the yellow rather than replacing it. Large swathes of yellow across the top of the shirt transition really well into the blue That the colour scheme is mirrored front and rear is a positive sign too, though the obvious panel at the back of the neck can stand out a bit too much.
Mainly used across Euro 2012 qualifiers, Kazakhstan struggled once more. Germany, Turkey and Belgium beat them home and away while they managed a credible 0-0 home draw against Austria. Their only home goals came in a 2-1 win over Azerbaijan, but a 3-2 loss away condemned them to the foot of the table. 4 away goals was a reasonable total, but only two games finished with a single goal margin.
How to liven up a standard Adidas template: here’s the example. Did it start off as a plain shirt with a yellow collar and Adidas stripes across the shoulders. They could’ve left it at that, but the pinstripes across the front change it to something actually interesting. Sadly they don’t extend across the back though. The wider outline of the FA logo, as it is yellow, also helps it to stand out. It makes for an interesting change to something plain, which is something different for Kazakhstan, if nothing else.
Qualifying for the 2014 World Cup didn’t go fantastically well, with Kazakhstan beating the Faroes 2-1 at home but only otherwise scoring points in draws away to the Faroes and at home against Austria. Germany, Sweden and the Republic of Ireland beat them home and away to condemn them to 5th place from 6, 9 points behind 4th and only 4 ahead of the Faroes. Some matches were fairly close, but scoring was a persistent struggle for them.
Here’s something familiar. Seemingly just to get in on the trend, Kazakhstan saw the plain Adidas template that so many other nations were using and grabbed one for themselves. A little bit of white at the collar, white panelling on the sleeves and some slightly strange joins at the top of the chest area. All very familiar, though the glued on FA logo is a slight improvement over the normal embroidered ones for this design.
Consistency remained something out of reach for Kazakhstan, with the design being used across a bare handful of friendlies in 2014. The blue was solely used in a 3-0 loss to Hungary, with the white away being used in a whole 3 further matches, in friendly victories over Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan (2-1 and 7-1) before a 0-0 Euros qualifier against Latvia to finish off the design’s use. All in all a very mixed reputation for a rather unmemorable shirt.
Last, and very much least, are the dullest Adidas shirts. Almost completely plain, the only interesting thing about them is the blue collar and coloured Adidas stripes. Keeping the main colours of yellow and blue on the shirt is good, the total lack of any other interesting feature is less good. On the positive side, the crest is glued on, no heavy stitching or lazy transfers but otherwise what is there to say about it, really?
Kazakhstan continued with their streak of struggling in Euro 2016 qualifiers, drawn in a tough group with Iceland, Czechia, Netherlands and Latvia. They drew 0-0 at home to Latvia, with single goal defeats to Turkey and the Netherlands but managed better away from home. A 0-0 draw in Iceland and a 1-0 win in Latvia brought their total up to 5 points, level with Latvia but ahead on head-to-head to pull them off the foot of the table.
The new badge is mildly interesting but simplified from what it used to be and less interesting than it was. The home has a little interest with the Kazakh light blue helped with some deep blue accenting, but the front torso’s pattern is a little too subtle to truly stand out. Nearly everything about the away shirt is just blue though and there’s none of the yellow accenting that helped other shirts. The sleeves have the nice fade pattern front and rear (weirdly more so on the rear) to help give the shirt some definition, but there’s not a lot here, and the lack of nameset doesn’t help with that.
The Kazakhs found things tricky in 2022 qualifiers, drawn in a tricky group with France, Ukraine, Finland and Bosnia-Herzegovina. The other teams fought hard to take points off each other and that left very few points for Kazakhstan. They drew home and away with Ukraine, but lost every other home match 2-0, got their third point away to Bosnia and set their record defeat by getting battered 8-0 by France. Certainly a wild ride.
In general, this sums of Kazakhstan, they struggled in qualifiers to date, particularly so since their move from the AFC to UEFA. In the AFC they reached the final stage of World Cup qualifying once and missed out on goal difference the second time. They best they did for the Asian Cup was a point behind Qatar for a spot at the 2000 tournament and they did not excel in their brief foray into the Asian Games and WAFF Championship. In UEFA they’ve always occupied the bottom spots of qualifying, beating the likes of UEFA’s smallest, but never excelling in either qualifying. For the Nations League they were originally drawn in League D, finishing 2nd in their first season but moving into League C through the restructuring. They took advantage of this move poorly, by taking points from 6 games against Albania (1 draw), Belarus (1 win) and Lithuania to fall into the relegation play-off.
Briefly active in Asia, Kazakhstan’s women’s team follow a familiar pattern. They managed a few results in the three AFC Championships they attended , scoring 0-0 draws against Hong Kong and the Philippines, while also beating Guam and Hong Kong in a later edition. However, they suffered dearly against the bigger nations. In UEFA they’ve been in preliminary qualifiers and Class B and have very few results to their name. Competitive with the very bottom nations, they’ve finished bottom or in the penultimate place every time in a full group. In men’s youth results they managed 4th place at the 1998 AFC U20 Championship but otherwise struggled in the AFC. In UEFA they’ve had some reasonable performances at U21 levels, gaining up to 10 points in a qualification group, though the closest they’ve come to qualification is 7 points off the play-off team. At U19 level they’ve never reached the Elite round, only hitting 4 points in a campaign once, while U17 has been slightly better with 4 points twice (2 and 1 goals off Elite round) and once reaching the Elite round on 3 points, though they then lost every game. In women’s youth football they’ve only taken points off Greece at U19 level (a 2-1 win in 2010 qualifiers) while at U17 level they’ve drawn against Latvia and Serbia, beaten Moldova and been awarded a 3-0 victory over Georgia. Suffice to say, they’ve struggled.
The Kazakhs are fairly new to beach soccer, debuting in 2011 World Cup qualifiers, losing all 3 games. This dissuaded them enough that they didn’t try again until 2017, where they managed to beat Norway. For 2019 they managed to beat Czechia, putting them in the Round of 16, where Italy thrashed them. In the Euro Beach Soccer League they debuted in 2014 and played every edition from 2016. Generally poor in Division B, they’ve developed into a solid League B side, qualifying for the promotion play-off in 2018 and 2019, finishing 3rd and then 2nd to not quite get promoted. More active in futsal, they debuted in the AFC, coming 3rd then 2nd and then getting eliminated in the quarter-finals. This got them to the 2000 FIFA World Cup where they sadly lost every game. Moving to UEFA proved damaging at first but they developed slowly to the point that they made the 2016 Euros and World Cup, then the 2018 Euros, 2021 World Cup and the 2022 Euros. They reached the Round of 16 in the 2016 World Cup but finished 3rd then 4th in the Euros! In women’s and youth futsal they are yet to gain a point, though it is very early days.
Expected to finish bottom of their 2022 qualification group with France, Ukraine, Finland and Bosnia-Herzegovina, the Kazakhs have done so. They tried their best to be kingmakers by limiting Ukraine, but the rest of the group was too good for them. Just not quite good enough from them.
Adam's National Shirt Collection 