Aslan Rafkat

Aslan Rafkat has worn a lot of shirts for a defender who has mostly stayed within Kazakhstan's top two divisions. He began at Bayterek Astana before moving through Tobyl, Aktobe, Atyrau and Irtysh Pavlodar, then Kaspiy Aktau, building a career that reads as a tour of the domestic league rather than a settled home. He returned to Zhetysu in December 2025, the club he had already represented between 2021 and 2023, having most recently come from Kaspiy.

Rafkat can play across the back line, comfortable at centre-back or on either flank, and takes the right foot into most of his defensive work. He earned a senior cap for Kazakhstan on 21 February 2019, coming on in a friendly against Moldova that the national side won 1-0. He had already been capped at youth level, with three appearances and a goal for the under-19s in 2012 and a further 22 games for the under-21s between 2014 and 2016.

His most productive spell in terms of output has come in defence rather than in the record books: across 223 league matches he has scored 20 goals. A personal landmark came on 14 April 2021, when he reached his 100th Kazakhstan Premier League appearance. The clearest team honour of his career arrived away from the top flight, when Ulytau finished as runners-up in the Kazakhstan First League in 2024, a season that also marked one of his few spells outside the Premier League before his move back to Kaspiy and then Zhetysu.