Tehran, Kabul, Lahore and Mumbai. At this moment, FourFourTwo is further east than all four of them, as we wander around the perimeter of Kairat Almaty’s Central Stadium, ahead of the club’s Champions League qualifying tie against Olimpija Ljubljana.
We are in Kazakhstan’s largest city, just 200 miles from the Chinese border, with the Trans-Ili Alatau mountains looming large over us, the beginning of highlands that sweep all the way south and across to the mighty Himalayas.
No UEFA fixture will be staged further east this season, and only two more eastern clubs have hosted a game in the entire history of major European competition – fellow Kazakhs Irtysh Pavlodar, who haven’t qualified since 2018, and Russians Sibir Novosibirsk, who had a lone foray into the Europa League’s preliminary rounds in 2010.
