ALMATY, Kazakhstan -- Any soccer fan googling “Abdukodir Khusanov” in recent weeks will have inevitably come across a video of that same Uzbek player running almost the entire length of a pitch to successfully catch an opponent bearing down on his team’s goal.
Khusanov reportedly clocked 37 kilometers per hour during that lightning dash, a speed that would make the 20-year-old one of the fastest players in his position on the planet.
His rise from a little-known youth player to becoming the first Central Asian to reach the English Premier League has been even more rapid, serving as an inspiration to millions of football-mad youngsters back in his Central Asian homeland.
And it isn’t just any English club that Khusanov -- nicknamed “the train” owing to his combination of velocity and physicality -- has joined in a transfer reportedly worth some $41 million.
The club is Manchester City, winner of the world’s richest league in six of the last seven seasons and coached by Pep Guardiola, widely regarded as one of the best soccer trainers of all time.
“For young Uzbek players, and in general for footballers from the Central Asian region, this will be a great motivation,” Otabek Djuraev, a sports commentator on Uzbekistan’s Sport television channel, told RFE/RL.
“Just imagine a 20-year-old Uzbek footballer ending up at what is probably still the best club in the world?! What an incentive!” Djuraev said, adding that soccer scouts the world over were now likely to pay more attention to Central Asian players.
A Less Trodden Path
Several soccer journalists in Uzbekistan’s capital, Tashkent, contacted by RFE/RL admitted to not knowing Khusanov well or at all.
After all, it was not until last year that he became an automatic starting choice for the national team, posting impressive displays at the AFC Asian Cup in Qatar and the Summer Olympics in Paris.
Djuraev argues that Khusanov may have benefited from taking a path less traveled, after leaving the Uzbek club Bunyodkor “whose coach did not see or did not particularly see potential in Abdukodir” in 2022.
Rather than head to Russia, as many Uzbek players do, or to Turkey, Khusanov, guided by his agent Gairat Khasbiullin and father Khikmatjon Khoshimov, who is himself a former professional soccer player, joined Belarusian club FC Energetik-BGU.
Although less well-supported than other clubs in the Belarusian capital, Minsk, Energetik-BGU had been remolded in the image of charismatic Belarusian trainer Anatol Yurevich, who knew Central Asian football well, having coached clubs in Kazakhstan and spent a stint working for Kazakhstan’s soccer federation.
“They didn’t prioritize money,” Djuraev said of Khusanov's team, instead choosing a sporting project that best suited the player’s development.
Khusanov spent one-and-a-half seasons in Belarus, earning recognition in the Belarusian top league’s symbolic “Team of the Season” for performances that were characterized by “power, pace, and composure” according to Belarusian soccer analyst Mikalay Khodasevich.
But the economically struggling club parted with Khusanov for the equivalent of just over $100,000 in the summer of 2023, as he joined RC Lens to become the first Uzbek player to play in France’s top league.
Taking 'The Train' To England Via France
The trajectory of soccer in Central Asia has been a positive one in recent years. Kazakhstan, which elected to switch from Asian to European competition back in 2002, enjoyed its best-ever effort at qualification for a major tournament, notching a shock win against Denmark along the way to narrowly missing out on a berth at Euro 2024.
Both Tajikistan and Uzbekistan reached the quarterfinals of the AFC Asian Cup, with Uzbekistan only knocked out in a penalty shootout by hosts and eventual winners Qatar.
In the time since Khusanov left Uzbekistan, the national team’s FIFA ranking has climbed from 85th to 58th in the world.
But a better indicator of progress is the fact that Uzbeks are now playing in a range of foreign leagues.
National team captain Eldor Shomurodov became the first player from his country to reach Italy’s Serie A in 2020, although he is presently a bench player for AS Roma.
Khusanov, too, spent time on the substitutes’ bench in France, but later grew into the team, winning plaudits for his battling approach as he became the youngest Uzbek to play in Europe’s top club competition, the UEFA Champions League.
Breaking into Manchester City’s team, where even defensive players are expected to show their technical qualities, will be even harder.
But he may already be the fastest player at the club, with the once super-speedy England international Kyle Walker now in decline and Norwegian superstar Erling Haaland registering the club’s top speed of 35.7 kilometers per hour this season.
At any rate, says Djuraev, the transfer alone “can be compared to a big underwater explosion, making waves that can produce future results” for Uzbek soccer.
