Kazakhstan

Astana carries the national team's name and, since the country became independent on 16 December 1991, its identity on the pitch. The team split from the Soviet Union set-up the following year and took its first steps as a member of the Asian Football Confederation, opening its international account against Turkmenistan on 1 June 1992.

What followed was a deliberate change of direction rather than a natural drift: on 1 January 2002 Kazakhstan left Asia for the Union of European Football Associations. The switch meant starting again in some sense — the first match under the new banner came against Ukraine in September 2004 — and the results since have been earned the hard way. No World Cup, no European Championship, not even a finals appearance at either. The nearest thing to a breakthrough came in qualifying for Euro 2024, when a second-place finish in the group sent the team into the play-offs, where Greece ended the run with a 5–0 defeat.

Two names carry the team's record book. Samat Smakov built his 76 caps between 2000 and 2016, while Bakhtiyar Zaynutdinov became the country's all-time leading scorer in October 2023, his 15th goal pushing past the 13 that had stood in Ruslan Baltiev's name.

The Hawks, as they are known, play in yellow at home and blue away, at the Astana Arena, which holds 30,200.