Farrukh Sayfiev #4

Profile

At 35, Sayfiev is established as one of the country's finest ever full-backs. He is known as Mr Stability in Uzbek football. Born in Samarkand, Sayfiev has spent most of his career with two clubs, with seven years at Nasaf followed by six at Pakhtakor. With these teams he won five Uzbek championships – a sixth followed last year, at Neftchi – multiple national championship medals, two Uzbek Cups, and four Uzbek Super Cups. Sayfiev was once asked at which of these two clubs he would choose to end his career. "I became famous at Nasaf, and I developed into a strong player at Pakhtakor,” he said. “It's very difficult to choose between them." Sayfiev, who gave the contents of his first pay packet as a footballer entirely to his mother, is often compared to Vitaly Denisov, perhaps the best left back in the history of the Uzbekistan national team – by others, at least. "You have to be realistic,” the player himself says, “Denisov is better than me." If he sounds generous and compassionate, he does not always play that way: fuelled by an unbreaking desire to win he has received 80 yellow cards and five reds in his career.

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