The draw for the main stage of the 2026/27 UEFA Conference League took place in Monaco. Almaty's Kairat, placed in Pot 4, were drawn against Italy's Atalanta, Greece's Panathinaikos, the Netherlands' Twente, Romania's Universitatea Craiova, Sweden's Mjällby, and Latvia's Riga. This was reported by infohub.kz.
The Greek, Romanian, and Swedish teams will travel to Kazakhstan, while Rafael Urazbakhtin's side will play away against the other three clubs.
According to the tournament regulations, each of the 36 teams will play six matches in the main round against different opponents (instead of eight as in the Champions League). The top eight clubs in the overall standings will advance directly to the round of 16. Teams finishing from ninth to 24th will take part in the playoff round in February 2027 for the right to play in the round of 16 in March.
The quarter-finals will be held on April 8 and 15, the semi-finals on April 29 and May 6. The 2026/27 Conference League final will take place on June 2 at Beşiktaş Stadium in Istanbul.
The exact schedule of the main stage matches will be announced later, but the dates of the rounds are already known: the first round is October 15, the second is October 22, the third is November 5, the fourth is November 26, the fifth is December 10, and the sixth is December 17.
Kairat, the 2025 Kazakhstan champion, had an unsuccessful Champions League qualifying campaign, dropping into the Europa League qualifiers and then into the Conference League. The draw for the 2026/27 Champions League also took place the day before.