Alay

Osh is Kyrgyzstan's second city, set in the Fergana Valley and closer in spirit to Central Asia's old caravan routes than to Bishkek, and its football club takes its name from the Alay range rising to the south. The side started out in 1960 simply as Osh, kept that name for five years, spent two more as Shakhtyor — borrowed from the region's mining trade — then settled on Alay in 1967. Between 1996 and 2002 it merged with the city's Dynamo club and played as Dynamo-Alay.

Alay's best run came from 2013 to 2017, four championships in a row, opened with a double of league and Kyrgyzstan Cup in 2013. A second cup followed in 2020, and the club took the Kyrgyzstan Super Cup in 2017, 2018 and 2023. Earlier, in 2010, it had been withdrawn from the championship altogether.

Home games are played at the Central Osh Stadium, named after Akhmatbek Suyumbaev and built in 1977, holding 12,000 in the club's yellow and black. Locally the team is known as the Yellow-Blacks. Aibek Tatanov captained the side through its league years and now manages it from the touchline.

Dordoy of Bishkek, the country's most decorated club, is the rival Alay is measured against; matches with Bishkek's Alga are called a southern derby in the local press, though Osh has no top-flight club of its own to make that label literal. The one venture into continental football, the 2014 AFC Cup, brought a single point from the group stage. Since the 2017 title, the league has kept slipping just out of reach — runner-up four times, fourth as recently as 2024, the top step still not reclaimed.