Champions League Playoff – Mixed weekend fortunes for Celtic and Kairat Almaty | OneFootball

While Celtic prepared for Wednesday night’s Champions League playoff at Celtic Park with an impressive performance and 4-1 win over Falkirk in the Premier Sports League Cup, opponent Kairat Almaty, suffered a rare domestic defeat on Saturday, losing a two goal lead against Yelimay Semey to go down 3-2…

Alistair Johnston of Celtic celebrates scoring his team’s second goal during the Premier Sports League Cup match between Celtic and Falkirk at Celtic Park on August 15, 2025. (Photo by Ian MacNicol/Getty Images)

Perhaps it was the extensive travelling that caught up with Rafael Urazbakhtin’s side, even though the Kairat Almaty head coach made five changes from the side that started in the penalty-shoot out victory in Slovakia last week against Slovan Bratislava.

It all started brightly enough for Kairat in their warm-up match ahead of the journey to Glasgow with their recent Brazilian signing Edmilson getting both goals to give Kairat a 2-0 advantage at the interval.

Rafael Urazbakhtin, Head Coach of FC Kairat looks on prior to the UEFA Champions League 2025/26 first qualifying round first leg match between Olimpija and Kairat Almaty at Stadion Stozice on July 08, 2025 in Ljubljana, Slovenia. (Photo by Jurij Kodrun/Getty Images)

However a second half collapse mean that Yelimay Semey were able to fight back to win 3-2, leaving the Kairat head coach angry at his side’s defensive display ahead of boarding the plan for the 3500 mile flight to Scotland.

After the shock defeat Rafael Urazbakhtin accused his players of conceding ‘childish goals’ in the 3-2 home defeat to Yelimay Semey on Saturday, as Kairat lost their third match in 20 games played in their current domestic campaign.

Ljubljana, Slovenia, July 8th 2025: Egor Sorokin of Kairat Almaty  in action against Marko Brest of Olimpija Ljubljana CD during the UEFA Champions League, First qualifying round, 1st leg, match between Olimpija Ljubljana and Kairat Almaty at Stadium Stozice, Ljubljana, Slovenia. Natasa Kupljenik / SPP RAxMEX Photo: Natasa Kupljenik/SPP

“We have no time to grieve about this result because we are preparing for a very important match in Scotland and have a long journey to make, but it was a disappointing defeat for us.”Rafael Urakhtin, Kairat’s Head Coach said as reported by Glasgow Times.

He added: “We were a long way from our best defensively and we conceded childish goals. If you are fighting for the league title, you cannot concede goals like this.

“The players actually carried out the instructions well, except for losing those goals. We knew they would be difficult to break down, but we managed to do it… and then we conceded stupid goals.”

Players of FC Kairat pose for a team photo prior to the UEFA Champions League 2025/26 first qualifying round first leg match between Olimpija and Kairat Almaty at Stadion Stozice on July 08, 2025 in Ljubljana, Slovenia. (Photo by Jurij Kodrun/Getty Images)

Celtic will have that long journey to contend with after the game against Livingston at Celtic Park on Saturday. However for now Brendan Rodgers will be encouraged by the excellent performance against Falkirk, the best yet as Celtic added to their earlier wins over St Mirren and Aberdeen with Daizen Maeda getting his first goal of the season and defenders Alistair Johnston and Dane Murray both getting on the scoresheet.

The Celtic manager remains hopeful of adding to his squad ahead of the vital match on Wednesday night. Rodgers said: “It would be great (to bring in new signings). We’ve obviously named a squad, but right up until just before the game we can do that. So that would be really good if we can.”

Dane Murray of Celtic celebrates scoring his team’s third goal with teammate Arne Engels during the Premier Sports League Cup match between Celtic and Falkirk at Celtic Park on August 15, 2025. (Photo by Ian MacNicol/Getty Images)

The deadline for two further additions to the 25-man squad submitted to UEFA expires at 11pm on tomorrow night.

The winners of the play-off tie go straight into the group stages of the Champions League with a prize of around £40m at stake.

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