The Kazakhstan national football team will play its opening match in the UEFA Nations League group stage against Norway on Friday, September 6. The game will take place at the Central Stadium in Almaty, with kickoff scheduled for 19:00 local time.

 

This will be the first-ever meeting between the national teams of Kazakhstan and Norway. Stanislav Cherchesov, now coaching Kazakhstan, also never prepared a team to face Norway before. However, as a player, Cherchesov went up against the Norwegian national team three times. The first two encounters were qualification matches for the 1982 UEFA European Under-19 Championship, and took place in 1981. The Soviet Union youth team, with Cherchesov in goal, won both games—2-0 in Oslo on October 12, 1981, and 1-0 in Sochi on November 3, 1981. Cherchesov also played one more match against Norway during the 1992 UEFA European Championship qualifiers, securing another victory for the Soviet Union—1-0 in Oslo on August 28, 1991. Cherchesov played the full 90 minutes in all three matches.