One of the main problems of Kazakh football still lies in the late discovery of young players who were considered talented in playing for youth teams. Many of them never overcome the difficult barrier, and as a result, they leave the potential within themselves unrealized.

Now the problem with the lack of playing time for young players in the KPL clubs has worsened. And this was emphasized by the well-known Kazakh coach Alexander Kuznetsov, who painted detailed statistics on young football players in the first round of the new season on his Instagram. The bbabo.net correspondent decided to reflect on this topic and voiced his conclusions.

Kuznetsov worked for a long time as a coach of youth teams of Kazakhstan of different ages, and also worked at the Republican College of Sports, where many talented players who are now the backbone of the under-21 team studied the basics of football.

He knows perfectly well what these players are capable of, and that they are quite capable of playing in their home league with due confidence from the coaching staffs of the clubs.

After the first round, Kuznetsov noted that 154 players played in it, 81 of which are legionnaires, which is more than half. Of the 73 Kazakhstanis, only ten players fit the category of the U-21 youth team. Moreover, for many of them, the opportunity to play for the youth team will soon disappear, and they will be replaced by players born in 2002-03. And only two young players falling under this category took part in the first round - Abylaikhan Nazymkhanov from Shakhtar and Damir Kasabulat from Kairat.

Of the ten players in the U-21 category who played in the first round of the KPL, five represent Kairat. And this figure very clearly reflects the picture of domestic football in terms of involving its novice performers.

Only one player from the U-19 age category was included in the application for the first round match, but remained an unused substitute. And only one player from the U-17 category got into the application for the season as a whole - 15-year-old midfielder Tamerlan Agimanov from Aksu.

Fans of Kazakhstani football remember that even before 2016 there were limiters in the Premier League. In each match, at least one young player with a Kazakh passport had to play in the team. But since the 2016 season, they decided to abandon the limits.

At one time, thanks to this limit, Bauyrzhan Islamkhan, Abzal Beisebekov, Stas Pokatilov and many other football players, who soon became the stars of national football, received their game minutes.

Now the situation is aggravated to the limit. It comes to the point that even experienced Kazakh players do not get a place in the starting lineup, not to mention the young ones. And the future generation needs to play and show themselves now.

Unfortunately, even in the last matches of the youth team, it was clear that not everyone is ready to functionally squeeze the maximum out of themselves for 90 minutes. This is due precisely to the fact that young people do not get chances in the club, and their representatives do not have constant match practice. Consequently, the physical form is also not in optimal condition.

Basically, such players are given time in the first and second leagues, but there the speed, the pace of the game and the level of skill are much lower, and do not reach international battles for entering the conditional youth Euro. In Europe, after all, young people aged 20-21 are already formed football players of the country's top division clubs.

Moreover, from the age of 19-20, football players begin to go on loan almost twice a year, and they gradually get used to it. So, by the age of 25, it is sometimes easier to name the clubs for which the once talented player did not play than to list those where he has already been. This does not give young players any stability. They show themselves to a new coach, in a new team, and then all over again, and so on in a circle.

Now the situation for young football players has worsened, and this happened after football players from the EAEU countries were no longer considered legionnaires. Now there are even more Russians, Belarusians, football players from Armenia in the championship, and they occupy the places that, in fact, should be in Kazakhstan.

It happens that now there are practically no Kazakhs in the squad. Six foreign players, several representatives of the EAEU countries and one or two local players. Such an approach is unlikely to bear fruit for Kazakh football.

So maybe now is the right time to return to the limit on the use of young players in the squad? After all, the most important thing is the development of our football and tomorrow, but so far we get the fact that up to 25 years old players are considered young and promising.Even if we imagine that in each round the team will have to start one limit player up to 21 years old inclusive, and keep two more such players in the application, then there will be more sense. A minimum of 14 players from the age group of the youth team will play in each round, and such players can form the backbone of the national U-21 team. The guys will be in a good playing tone and more confident due to the experience gained.

The application will already have at least 42 young players in each round, which is great. A wide choice, and even if not all of them will go on the field, then at least half of them is quite possible. So it will be much easier for the head coach of the youth team to determine the list of called-up players and compare players. In the meantime, the situation is such that sometimes the coaching staff has to identify a more suitable player from among those who do not play at all. But how is it possible?

In any case, this is a very important question that should be in the head of the leaders of Kazakhstani football. It is possible that the limit for young players is even as important as the limit for foreign players. And it remains to be hoped that soon young players will be able to get more chances to prove themselves in their native clubs.

Recall that the next match of the youth team of Kazakhstan will be held on March 29 in Almaty. It will be a European Championship qualifying game against Scotland. After five rounds in the asset of the Kazakhstan "youth team" not a single point scored. Now the team is coached by Kairat Nurdauletov.

Photos: KFF (1.5), FC Kairat (2), FC Astana (3.4), FC Aksu (6)

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