The Team That Just Does Not Lose….But Is It Fair?
The great Manchester United of the nineties, the invincible Arsenal, the dominant Barcelona era. All incredible teams with immense success. Even more recently Manchester City winning it all, Bayern Munich and PSG overwhelmingly succeeding in their respective nations. All great records and achievements, but how does that compare to the team that has won every domestic game in the last two seasons? An impressive statistic to say the least, even more impressive is how this team has only existed for those two seasons. This is the short story of Turkmenistan’s Arkadag Futbol Kluby.
The story of Arkadag is like no other, the city of Arkadag, in the southern province of Turkmenistan, has existed since 2019. The city is a ‘passion project’ for then president (now former president) Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov. Initially starting with a 1.5-billion-dollar budget the city has quickly been constructed and has already, by law, been designated a ‘city of state importance’. As part of this ‘passion project’ the creation of Arkadag FK was born. Berdimuhamedov wanted to create a football team to take, not only the nation, but the continent by storm.
Thus far, his plan has worked, the club quickly rubber stamped themselves as a Turkmenistan football powerhouse. The former president has used his position of power (some would say) to get a head start in revolutionising football in the nation. The Turkmenistan transfer window was extended in 2023, this was almost certainly done to benefit Arkadag FK. The club signed several high-profile players from around the league, the current squad could almost be compared to the MLS all-star team in America. Berdimuhamedov has certainly reaped the rewards of his games. Winning every game in the clubs first season of existence and following that up with winning every domestic game of the next season.
To put into context the strength of the squad, the national teams recent World Cup qualifiers consisted of 14 Arkadag players, just over half of the national squad. The nations captain Arslanmyrat Amanov made the switch to Arkadag as did star striker Altymyrat Annadurdyyew, both stating the offers were too lucrative to turn down. As much as the story on the outside looks like an incredible rise of football, when you dig a bit deeper it seems like Arkadag simply cannot be stopped. Disgruntled fans of opposing teams claim there is bias from officials during the games, citing a game with Sagadam, a controversial last-minute penalty was awarded with the scores locked at 2-2, Arkadag scored the resulting penalty winning the game.
With such domination domestically, the next priority will be to claim continental glory. This season Arkadag were drawn in the same AFC Challenge Group as Kuwait giants Al-Arabi, Maziya from the Maldives and Abdysh-Ata Kant from Kyrgyzstan. Arkadag quickly asserted their dominance, beating both Maziya and Abdysh-Ata Kant, however the club did see their first ever defeat to Al-Arabi. Over 60 games into the club’s history and the first defeat is inflicted (excluding friendlies). The club did still proceed to the quarterfinals where they will come up against Indian side East Bengal with a win expected. Local expectation is for the club to reach the final of the competition (the continents equivalent to the UEFA Conference League), most likely where they will find Al-Arabi once again.
Amidst the controversy surrounding Arkadag, any public complaint is likely to fall on deaf ears. The nation is running as a dictatorship, often labelled as central Asia’s North Korea. The results of this mean there is little information available about the state of football in the nation, finding the little details is almost impossible as only certain information is allowed to run in the media regarding the football league.
So, will Arkadag become the next colossus of Asian football? Possibly, but already, after just two years there are cracks showing in the armour. The club should have been jetting off to Turkey or the UAE recently for some warm weather training before their quarter final match with East Bengal, however this was cancelled as Turkmen authorities deemed this as an unnecessary excess and refused to finance it. The country benefits from huge amounts of natural gas that contributes to the majority of the nation’s economy; however, the nation’s economy is showing signs of decline.
Looking back at the football though and suspicion is cast upon them. The ‘invincible’ status is questioned. The Al-Arabi defeat is recognised but the club actually lost two games prior to this. Friendlies against Shakhtar Donetsk of the Ukraine and Dnipro-1 also from the war-torn nation. These defeats though seemed to have vanished from the Turkmen Football Federations website, all in an attempt to keep up the ‘invincible’ facade.
Is the emergence of Arkadag beneficial for football in Turkmenistan? The nation has never really had a stamp on the footballing world, perhaps this new era could bring new success for the nation. The thoughts of the fans though tell a different story. Reports that the fans attending the Arkadag games are not real fans at all but people, somewhat employed, to go to the games and create an atmosphere. How will any of this improve the standard of football in Turkmenistan? In all likeliness, it won’t. It may bring short term success to Arkadag but may not benefit the state of football in any positive manner in the nation.
Should a club like this be allowed to grace the hallowed turf of a football field? That’s not for the public to decide, but where does this stop? Can Arkadag really become an Asian footballing powerhouse? Can they really progress and compete in the Asian Champions League? With the current state of football in Turkmenistan, why not? It should come as no surprise then if we begin to see the stars of Asian domestic football like Aleksander Mitrović, Rúben Neves and even Cristiano Ronaldo playing continental cup games in the closed off nation of Turkmenistan.
Researched and Written by BSc Cavan Campbell
