A step towards Europe.

22 year old Kazakhstani center forward, Sergey Khiznichenko, has completed the transfer from FC Shakhter Karagandy to Polish MKS Korona Kielce which plays in the top Polish League. He becomes the first Kazakhstani-born player to move to a non-Russian European competition. Sergey is a member of the Kazakhstani national team and the young forward is viewed as a star of the future. We sat down with him to talk about his move to Poland and what he sees for himself in the future.

-Sergey, how did the possibility of moving to Poland come about?

Well when I arrived from Israel after our last EL game my agent told me about an opportunity to play in Poland. I thought why not? It’s closer to big European football; my childhood dream was to play in a good domestic league, so it would be a step towards that dream. From there (Poland) it is probably easier to get into a stronger league.

-How smoothly did the trial go?

I flew into Poland the 16th of January, but the team had gotten together the 10th. We were 120km from Kielce and played on a synthetic field where the team has worked for the past 4-5 years.  It was a tough trial, I got through 2 training sessions, played 2 incomplete matches, overall I would say everything went well.

-What can you say about your new team, specifically your teammates and trainers?

My teammates are great, they’re friendly people. The trainer loves discipline, but is also very friendly; he treats everybody equally. There are 2 other Russian speakers from Ukraine in the squad . . . they help me communicate, step in as translators. I’m trying to remember phrases and learn some Polish.

-What is the goal this year for your new team

The championship splits into 2 groups halfway through the season. Right now we are in 12th position, but only 6 point away from 5th. Our job is to get into the top group of 8 teams.

-Have you gotten to see the infrastructure of the club?

The infrastructure is at a top European level. There is an amazing stadium with a capacity of 15 thousand. Inside the stadium there is everything a player could need to recuperate after a game: a massage room, sauna, medical staff. To be honest I’ve never seen anything like this in Kazakhstan.

–Would you say that last year was the best season of your career?

I hope that my best years are ahead of me. If we take look at my performance, I started off shaky and then played well before falling off at the end of the season. If we judge by the performance of Shakhter – we won the cup, the supercup, played well in the CL qualifying and got into the EL group stage. It was an interesting season.

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Original interview on sports.kz by Duman Balykbaev. Translated by Bekezhan Nurkhaidarov. Photograph from korona-kielce.pl