FC Tobol
Also written as Tobol, Tobol Kostanay.
The club
Football Club Tobol, in Kazakh Тобыл футбол клубы and often rendered Tobyl, were founded in 1967 and are based at the Central Stadium in Kostanay in northern Kazakhstan, a ground holding 9,500. They have been members of the Kazakhstan Premier League since its foundation in 1992 and finished no lower than fourth in every season from 2002 to 2010. The first-choice kit is white. The owner is Alimzhan Kaldiyarov and the chairman Nikolay Panin.
Recent seasons
Tobol were runners-up in 2020 with 38 points from 20 matches, champions in 2021 with 61 points from 26 matches, 18 wins, 7 draws and 1 defeat, and third in 2022 with 47. They fell to eighth in 2023 with 34 points, though they won the Kazakhstan Cup that year, were fifth in 2024 with 39, and third in 2025 with 54 points from 26 matches, 16 wins, 6 draws and 4 defeats, winning the Kazakhstan Cup again.
The 2026 season has gone badly. As at 6 August 2026 Tobol had 6 wins, 4 draws and 10 defeats from 20 league matches, 21 goals scored and 28 conceded, 22 points, and stood twelfth. Nurbol Zhumaskaliyev resigned as head coach on 21 April 2026 with the club fifteenth. The home and away splits are stark: 6 wins, 2 draws and 1 defeat at the Central Stadium, 15 goals scored and 9 conceded, and no wins at all on the road, 2 draws and 9 defeats, 6 goals scored and 19 conceded. They lost the 2026 Kazakhstan Cup at the quarter-final stage.
Honours and landmarks
Two Kazakhstan Premier League titles, 2010 and 2021. Three Kazakhstan Cups, 2007, 2023 and 2025. Four Kazakhstan Super Cups, 2021, 2022, 2024 and 2026. Joint winners of the 2007 UEFA Intertoto Cup.
The 2026 Super Cup was won at the Astana Arena on 28 February 2026, 2-2 against Kairat after Luis Guerra scored on 6 minutes and Askhat Tagybergen on 89, and 5-4 on penalties, in front of 15,546.
Notable scorelines
No club record win or record defeat was confirmed from the sources read here. In Europe, the 4-1 home win after extra time over Hajduk Split on the way to a 4-3 aggregate victory in the 2021-22 Conference League second qualifying round, and the 3-1 win in Basel in 2023-24 that turned a 1-2 home defeat into a 4-3 aggregate win, are the club's best results. The heaviest European defeat in the record read here is 0-5 away to Žilina in the 2021-22 Conference League third qualifying round, part of a 0-6 aggregate.
European record
Tobol's overall UEFA record, updated to the match of 6 August 2026, is 55 matches, 18 wins, 11 draws and 26 defeats, 50 goals scored and 71 conceded. That splits into 4 matches in the Champions League, 18 in the UEFA Cup and Europa League, 21 in the Conference League and 12 in the Intertoto Cup, where their record is much the best: 8 wins from 12.
They first played in Europe in the 2003 Intertoto Cup, beating Polonia Warszawa and Sint-Truiden before losing to Pasching. They won the 2007 Intertoto Cup as joint winners, beating Zestaponi, Slovan Liberec and OFI, and advanced to the second qualifying round of the 2007-08 UEFA Cup.
In 2021-22 they knocked out Hajduk Split and then lost heavily to Žilina. In 2022-23 Ferencváros beat them 5-1 on aggregate in Champions League qualifying, and in the Conference League they beat Lincoln Red Imps 3-0 before losing to Zrinjski Mostar. The best run came in 2023-24: Honka, then Basel 4-3 on aggregate, then Derry City on penalties, 6-5 after 1-1, before Viktoria Plzeň won the play-off 5-1 on aggregate. In 2024-25 Ružomberok beat them 5-3 in Europa League qualifying and St Gallen 5-1 in the Conference League. They had no European football in 2025-26.
Quotes
- "Самое главное — выполнили задачу" - Miroslav Romashchenko, Tobol head coach, on fctobol.kz, 31 July 2026, after the Panevėžys tie. https://fctobol.kz/?post_type=post&p=3037
That is the only quotation confirmed here. A second remark attributed to Romashchenko, "В таких матчах на первый план должна выходить мотивация", was removed on checking: the words appear on the club's site only as the headline of a separate, earlier article, not on the page or at the date they had been cited to, and that article could not be dated or read. No quotation relating to the Partizan tie was confirmed from the sources read here; the club's own coverage of the second leg is a ticketing notice.
Right now (2026/27)
Nurbol Zhumaskaliyev, a club legend as a player, resigned as head coach on 21 April 2026 and the Belarusian Miroslav Romashchenko was appointed the following day. Recruitment over the winter was heavy: Aleksandr Marochkin returned from Astana on 30 December 2025, Amine Talal came from Akhmat Grozny on 5 January 2026, Damir Marat and Dauren Zhumat from Okzhetpes on 12 and 16 January, Luis Guerra from Deportes Limache on 23 January, Abdoulaye Cissé from Novi Pazar on 4 February, Rubin Hebaj from Sogdiana on 5 February, Maksim Myakish from Dinamo Minsk on 9 February, Uroš Milovanović from Chaves on 25 February and Kirill Glushchenkov from Pari Nizhny Novgorod on 27 February. Under Romashchenko came Rayan Senhadji from Sumgayit on 2 June, Antonio Boršić from Varaždin on 14 June, Islam Chesnokov back from Heart of Midlothian on 28 June on a deal to the end of 2028, and Vitaly Lisakovich from Torpedo-BelAZ Zhodino on 31 July 2026. Zhaslan Zhumashev is the season's top scorer with seven.
Tobol are in Europe as 2025 Kazakhstan Cup winners and entered the Conference League at the second qualifying round. They drew 1-1 at Panevėžys on 23 July 2026, Nemanja Cavnić equalising on 84 minutes, and drew the return 1-1 after extra time in Kostanay on 30 July, Amine Talal scoring in first-half stoppage time, then won 3-2 on penalties, Guerra, Cavnić and Tagybergen scoring from the spot.
The tie they are in right now is the Conference League third qualifying round, Main Path, against Partizan. Tobol lost the first leg 3-0 at the Partizan Stadium in Belgrade on 6 August 2026 in front of 10,367, to goals from Demba Seck on 32 minutes, Ibrahim Zubairu on 64 and Chaka Traorè in the fourth minute of stoppage time. The second leg is at the Central Stadium in Kostanay on 13 August 2026, refereed by Daniele Chiffi of Italy. The winner of the tie meets Getafe in the Conference League play-off round on 20 and 27 August. The Premier League round-21 fixture against Kaisar was postponed by the Kazakhstan Football Federation on 8 August, on account of Kaisar's own Conference League qualifying commitments rather than Tobol's.
Sources
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FC_Tobol https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_FC_Tobol_season https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_Kazakhstan_Premier_League https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026%E2%80%9327_UEFA_Conference_League_qualifying_(first_and_second_round_matches) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026%E2%80%9327_UEFA_Conference_League_qualifying_(third_and_play-off_round_matches) https://fctobol.kz/ https://fctobol.kz/?post_type=post&p=3037 https://fctobol.kz/?post_type=post&p=3052 https://fctobol.kz/?post_type=post&p=3059 https://www.uefa.com/uefaconferenceleague/match/2049151 https://www.uefa.com/uefaconferenceleague/match/2049181 https://www.uefa.com/uefaconferenceleague/match/2048842 https://www.uefa.com/uefaconferenceleague/match/2048793
Researched and written for not4quarters. Where a fact could not be established from the sources read, this page says so rather than guessing.