Abduvokhid Nematov #12

Profile

Nematov moved from Jizzakh to Qarshi at the age of 14 and joined Nasaf soon afterwards; more than a decade later he is still there, having won every major trophy in Uzbekistan. He is particularly good with his feet, down perhaps to the fact he started in football as a striker, and still has an eye for goal: he scored two of them in the 2023-24 season, both from penalties. "If I was afraid of making a mistake, I wouldn't be a goalkeeper. Because if a goalkeeper makes a mistake, a goal is scored," he says. In 2022 Uzbekistan hosted the Under-23 Asian Cup and Nematov was sent off in the 12th minute of their quarter-finals against Iraq, putting the team in a difficult position – and it turned out his mother was watching having made a secret trip to the stadium. "My mother came to Tashkent to watch the game without telling me that day, and I got sent off. It was terrible," Nematov recalled. In 2024 Uzbekistan qualified for the Olympics for the first time, with Nematov saving a penalty from Sergio Gomez in the match against Spain.

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