Abdish-Ata

Abdysh-Ata head into the new Kyrgyzstan Premier League season as three-time defending champions, having held the title every year since 2022. That run included a first for a Kyrgyz club — a semi-final appearance in the AFC Cup — and this year the Super Cup came back to Kant as well, nine years after the club's first.

The club grew out of the Abdysh-Ata brewery in Kant, a town outside Bishkek, where it was set up in 2000. The brewery supplied the name and the nickname that still sticks, Brewers, alongside the more informal Kantovchane used locally. Two years after founding, the team won promotion to the top flight, and it has stayed there ever since 2003.

Home matches are played at the Nitro Arena in Kant, a 2,000-seat ground, with the side turned out in sky blue and green.

Relegation has not been a threat at any point in that stretch. The closest the club came to trouble was fifth place in 2019, still well short of the drop places, and the domestic cup has been won five times since 2007.

All of it started with a brewery in Kant putting its name on a football shirt in 2000.