"Flying to Kazakhstan is not easy,"
"Home games in Almaty will be a big advantage, and - with our fans - it will be like a fortress."
"It's historic that a Kazakh club qualified for the Champions League for the first time in a decade,"
"We believe we will make a bit of noise in Europe."
Kairat Almaty make a Champions League debut by hosting Real Madrid at the 24,000-seater Ortalyq Stadion in Almaty. The club crossed three time zones and a record 6,900km for a 4-1 defeat to Sporting in Lisbon. Real Madrid will travel about 6,441km to reach Almaty, a 13-hour flight, while Almaty sits geographically closer to Beijing than Madrid. Kazakhstan has been a UEFA member since 2002. Kairat's squad value is 10.9m compared with Real Madrid's 1.2bn. Kairat must travel roughly 25,000km for four away matches, the most in the league phase.
Read at www.bbc.com
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]