With a Ball Throughout Whole Life

20.06.2018

Being 32 years old he has over 40 medals, three of which are gold. In addition to it, he has 15 statuettes called Best Player and Best Bombardier. The name of the football player Murat Akhmetsharipov, Operator from Bogatyr Loading and Transportation Department of Bogatyr Coal LLP is well known not only in our town but far beyond it. In the recent past he was defending the colors of Ekibastuz football team with honor, and currently he demonstrates his talent brightly playing in Astana and republican picked teams and representing Kazakhstan in world championships.

Love to football was implanted to a five-year-old Murat by his father, who himself was fond of this fascinating play of tense and most beautiful moments. Soon the boy was not satisfied with playing football in playgrounds for professional mastering football skills. Then his parents decided to send him to Pavlodar sports boarding-school called Irtysh.

Three years later, being 11 years old the young football player finished his study and returned from the regional center to Ekibastuz. Ever since his football carrier started, which he has never left aside achieving high results. The first coach of Murat Akhmetsharipov in the town team was Grigoriy Chuprin, about whom he remembers with the big gratitude. In several years the sportsman tried to play football of another level. Since them he has been a member of the capital picked team.

One of the most memorable for Murat was European Championship held in Hungary in 2016. In the final match with the team from Croatia it was namely him who was honored to determine the result of the largest football event. The score was 0:1 with Kazakhstan loosing. Our forward managed to tie the score. The opponents got the better hand again but just a few minutes prior to the end of the match the second goal from Murat Akhmetsharipov equalized the numbers on the table. A series of penalty shootouts determined the winner of the championship, which was the football team from Kazakhstan.

Often the football player has to participate in out matches. He confesses he has got used to such dynamics. However, his busy football schedule does not prevent his family or work. At home his relatives, especially his 11-year-old son Muslim, pull for him, whom like his father makes friends with a "leather spotty friend" from being a 6-year-old, goes to Children and Youth Sports School # 4 with a coach Yevgeniy Skorobogatskiy and participates in football games of a different level actively. At work his chief always makes him advances. He himself is a sportsman and understands the importance of participation in sports events - Aleksandr Nazarenko.

Currently Murat is getting ready for forthcoming games - championship of Kazakhstan, which will take place in Astana at the end of June and European Championship in Kiev in August. Let us wish good luck to the sportsman!

Marina PONKRATOVA

Photo from the archives of Murat AKHMETSHARIPOV.