Taraz

Whenever Taraz meet Zhetysu, the fixture carries more weight than the league position suggests. There is no fixed name for it — just two Kazakh clubs that keep drawing tight matches whenever the calendar puts them together.

The club has worn five different names since it took shape in Taraz, Zhambyl Region, in 1960 — Metallist, Voskhod, Energetik, Alatau, Khimik — before settling on Taraz in 1993. In Soviet football it never reached far: the best a Zhambyl side managed was the last 32 of the USSR Cup, in 1991/92.

Independence brought the closest thing to a golden run. Taraz took the championship in 1996, with Nurken Mazbaev leading the line — who went on to finish as the Kazakh top flight's all-time top scorer, with 142 goals, and topped the scoring charts himself in 1995 and 1997. He returned to the club across three separate spells. Silver followed either side of the title, in 1995 and 1997, and the Kazakhstan Cup arrived in 2004, against three lost finals, in 1992, 1993 and 2013.

Home games are played at the Central Stadium, which holds 12,525 in the club's white and blue. The nickname on the terraces is Fortress.