Kazakhstani football team departs for Istanbul

Tonight, October 7, the national and junior football teams of Kazakhstan depart by a charter flight from Almaty to Istanbul to football World Cup and European Cup qualifiers, KZ-today correspondent reports.

The junior team of Kazakhstan (before 21) will play against Turkish football players October 8 in a European Cup-2006 qualifier. It will be the second game for our team. In its first match September 7 the Kazakhstani junior team lost to Ukrainian football players - 0:1.

The national team of Kazakhstan will meet the Turkish team October 9 in a World Cup-2006 qualifier.

The Turkish team is one of favourites in the 2 group, including apart from Kazakhstan and Turkey, also Greece, Denmark, Georgia, Ukraine, and Albania. The bronze winners of the World Cup-2002, the Turkish football players have drawn both their games -September 4 with Georgia - 1:1 and September 8 against the European champions Greece - 0:0.

Kazakhstani players lost to Ukraine September 8 with a 1:2 score.

According to Sergey Timofeyev, chief coach of Kazakhstani team, our football players understand that the whole country will support them when they play in Istanbul.