Shakhter Karagandy

Karaganda grew up on coal, and the pits gave the city's football club both its name and its colours — orange and black, like a miner's lamp against a coal seam. A side called Ugolshchik had already played in the Cup of the VTsSPS from 1950, but the team of masters known as Shakhter dates its history to 1958. Through the Soviet decades it won its regional zone of the Class B and Second League more than once, in 1962, 1967, 1982 and 1983, without ever forcing a way into the Higher League. Independent Kazakhstan gave it a fresh start in 1992, and the club has played out of the 19,500-seat Shakhter Stadium ever since.

The best of it came in three seasons. Shakhter won its first championship in 2011 and defended it in 2012, then in 2013 became the first Kazakh club to reach a Europa League group stage, adding the Kazakhstan Cup and Super Cup in the same year. Andrei Finonchenko, who scored 131 goals for the club, was named Kazakhstan's Footballer of the Year that season.

The fall came slower. By 2017 the club owed around 208 million tenge, and the city administration put it up for auction for a token price. In 2024, Shakhter finished bottom of the Premier League and dropped into the First League for the first time, ending a run of 33 consecutive seasons among Kazakhstan's elite.

No fixture matters more than the one against Kairat Almaty. The two have met since 1958, in what Kazakh football calls the derby of the two capitals, and Kairat still holds the upper hand in the head-to-head.