7000km away from home - Who is Kairat goalkeeper Sherkhan Kalmurza?

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Imagine travelling almost 7,000km for a UEFA Champions League game and then getting pressed into action. That’s what happened to Kairat’s third-string goalkeeper, Sherkhan Kalmurza, on Thursday night. In their first-ever UCL  game, Kairat travelled all the way from Kazakhstan's Almaty to Portugal, where they faced Sporting in Lisbon. Prior to tonight, the 18-year-old had 77 minutes of professional football under his belt.

Last weekend, Kalmurza came on to replace Temirlan Anarbekov in Kairat’s 1-0 win over league rivals Aktobe. Coming on and helping his team secure three points in the Kazakh Premier Liga can certainly be described as a dream debut. For Kairat, the injury to Anarbekov also meant that the nominal no.1 Aleksandr Zarutskiy and his replacement, Anarbekov, were unavailable against Sporting on Thursday.

As a result, it was Kalmurza who made the trip all the way to Portugal. And initially, it appeared that his young career had another major highlight in store. The game was 21 minutes old when Kairat’s Aleksandr Mrynskiy gave away a penalty. Morten Hjulmand stepped up, but Kalmurza saved the penalty. To put that in perspective, Hjulmand’s market value alone is more than four times that of the entire Kairat squad combined.

€420m in squad value difference – Sporting smash Kairat to open UCL

With an overall squad value of just €12.73 million, Kairat are the least valuable squad in the Champions League this season. In comparison, tonight’s opponent, Sporting, have a squad value of €434.4m. Indeed, 13 of Sporting’s 25 players have a higher market value than the entire Kairat squad put together. Unfortunately, the difference in market value would show as the game progressed. Sporting would eventually get their goals and win the game 4-1 thanks to goals by Francisco Trincão (44’ & 65’), Alisson Santos (67’), and Geovany Quenda (68’). The only Kairat goal was scored by Edmilson.