The matches of the 18th round of the Kazakhstan First League were stretched over three days due to a massive power outage in Almaty. The final game of the round took place on Saturday morning: Almaty's Khan-Tengri hosted Arys at a stadium with artificial turf. The match, postponed from Friday due to the blackout, ended in a goalless draw and did not delight the spectators with an abundance of dangerous chances, reports infohub.kz.
In other matches of the round, held on August 13-15, the central event was the thrashing of the youth team Aktobe-M by the championship leader, Karaganda's Shakhter, with a score of 6:1. For the visitors, Artem Litos scored a hat-trick, strengthening his lead in the scorers' list: he now has 17 goals in 17 matches. Second in the scoring race is Alikhan Ali from Akademia Ontustik with 9 goals.
Kairat-Zhaspar continues to experience a game crisis: the team has not won since July 24 and once again dropped points, drawing 0:0 with Shymkent's Akademia Ontustik. Meanwhile, Shakhter is in excellent form, having scored 16 goals in their last six matches.
Other results of the round: Batyr from Ekibastuz defeated Uralsk's Zhaik 3:1, Taraz and Turan played out a draw (0:0), Kaspiy-M from Aktau edged out Yelimay-M from Semey (2:1), and Astana-M suffered a heavy defeat to Tobol-M (0:4).
The next, 19th round of the First League, will take place on August 20 and 21.