History of FC Astana
Football Club Astana, also known as simly FC Astana, is Kazakh association football club based in Astana. The club is affiliated with Astana Presidential Sports Club, and plays its home games at Astana Arena.
2009–2012
The club formed as the result of a merger between FC Alma-Ata and FC Megasport in the beginning of 2009 as FC Lokomotiv Astana. Later they moved to newly built Astana Arena. The club has benefited from a high salary role which has enabled them to attract players of status to the club. Andrey Tikhonov and Yegor Titov first of all came from the Russian Football Premier League. Several more followed such as Patrick Ovie and Baffour Gyan. Maxim Shatskikh later arrived from Dynamo Kyiv in the Ukrainian Premier League which is again a very high profile capture for the club. The majority of their other players have arrived from other clubs of the Kazakhstan Premier League, mostly on free transfers from the clubs which were absorbed to make the club and several which last year went into bankruptcy. The club earned silver medals in their first season of play.
In 2010, Holger Fach guided Lokomotiv to their first Kazakhstan Cup success. However, they were ineligible for a UEFA license since they had not yet existed for at least three years. So they were not able to start in 2011–12 UEFA Europa League. On 2 March 2011, Lokomotiv beat Tobol 2–1 and won the Kazakhstan Super Cup for the first time. On 20 May 2011, the club was renamed to FC Astana.
2012–present
In 2012, Miroslav Beránek led Astana to win their second Kazakhstan Cup. In July 2013, the club played in the First qualifying round of the UEFA Europa League against Botev Plovdiv. Astana lost both matches, 0–1 at home and 0–5 away. On 4 July 2013, Astana officially joined to newly created Astana Presidential Sports Club, the organization supported by Sovereign Wealth Fund Samruk-Kazyna to combine the main sports teams in Astana. On 22 June 2014, the club announced that former Botev's manager Stanimir Stoilov appointed as a new head coach. In 2014–15 European campaign, Astana played four ties in the UEFA Europa League qualifying stages. In the first round they beat Pyunik 6–1 on aggregate, then raised more than a few eyebrows in the second round, beating Hapoel Tel Aviv 3–1 on aggregate thanks to a convincing home leg win. The third qualifying round saw Astana cruise AIK, with a 4–1 aggregate score. In play-off round, Astana defeated by Villarreal.