Astana head coach Grigory Babayan commented on the victory over Kairat in the 27th round of the Kazakhstan Premier League and responded to his colleague Rafael Urazbakhtin, who after the match limited himself to the word 'shapito'. This was reported by Qazaqyia.kz citing Kursiv Media.
According to Babayan, the match was characteristic of a confrontation between the two teams – with a lot of fighting and emotions. At the same time, the coach admitted that after the opponent's sending-off, his team could not immediately take advantage of the numerical superiority.
"Before the sending-off and the goal, we more or less played our football. But after the sending-off, especially in the first half, we did not show our football – that is a fact. There were many mistakes. In the second half we looked better, there were chances, we could have scored. For us it was important to simply win," Babayan said at the press conference.
The Astana coach also reacted to Urazbakhtin's words. Babayan stressed that he tries to treat colleagues with respect, but also recalled Urazbakhtin's previous statements after Kairat's 1:4 defeat to Tobol.
At that time, the coach of the Almaty team sharply reacted to Babayan's words that he had deliberately "sacrificed" two players due to the threat of disqualification. The Kairat coach called such an explanation "nonsense" and said he did not want to comment on it in detail, but at the same time effectively shifted the conversation to a moral plane, stressing that in sport and life it is important to "act according to conscience", achieve results honestly and not commit acts that one will later be ashamed of.
"I cannot allow myself what Mr. Urazbakhtin allowed himself at the last press conference after the 1:4 match. I do not know how one must lose one's head to say such things and get personal," the Astana coach said.
According to him, part of Urazbakhtin's complaints concerned the refusal to postpone matches. Babayan in response recalled that earlier Astana had also approached Kairat with a request to change the date of the meeting after the European cup match with Brann in 2024, but received a refusal.
"I understand, he may have been in big football for only two years and does not understand many things, lacks experience. It is hard, of course, to cope with what has fallen on him over the last year or two. But respect must be shown," Babayan noted.
The Astana coach also said that after the previous sharp press conference he expected a call or message from Urazbakhtin.
"I had a very good relationship with him. I thought that he, perhaps, was emotional, and would later call or write: 'Listen, I was emotional there.' Our profession is difficult, and we must support each other. But none of this happened," he said.
In conclusion, Babayan reacted directly to the word 'shapito'.
"And now he says 'shapito'. I do not know. Maybe he said it about himself. I do not know. Maybe a clown has arrived," summed up the Astana head coach.
Recall that Astana beat Kairat 1:0. Already in the 11th minute, the Almaty team were left a man down after Adilet Sadybekov was sent off, and soon Ramazan Karimov scored the only goal of the match.
After the matches of the 27th round, Ordabasy leads the KPL table with 61 points. Second-placed Kairat has 57 points. Astana with 48 points is in third place.