Kazakhstan coach Bernd Storck is on a mission to get his country known for football rather than comedy character Borat – and he is deadly serious about facing England at Wembley.
Storck has told his players to play without fear and not to be overawed by Fabio Capello's stars, to such an extent that he does not want them swapping shirts on the pitch with the likes of Wayne Rooney and David Beckham at the end of the World Cup q
ualifier.
Nothing is expected other than an England win but the Kazakhstan Football Federation have a long-term plan to reach the 2016 European Championships and Storck is blooding youngsters to give them experience, making sweeping changes to the squad.
The hope is that the country can shake off its association with Borat – the role played by Sacha Baron Cohen as a Kazakh travelling through America.
"The Borat film is nonsense, it is not like Kazakhstan," Storck said. "This is not the character of Kazakhstan's people. We are a serious country and are not to be compared with the film.
"Kazakhstan is a very big country with very nice people. It's a rich country with oil and gas, we have 15.5million people there."
Storck, however, admitted he was stunned by the high level of facilities for his side's preparations at St Albans FC and Watford's training ground.
Storck, in charge on an interim basis following Arno Pijpers' dismissal, also let his players go shopping in Harrods and sight-seeing – but he does not want them to treat the clash at Wembley as a day out.
"If they look to change shirts straight away I will be upset," he said. "I'd rather buy them a shirt myself. This is not an important thing, they can swap in the tunnel.
"The players that go to Rooney or Beckham straight after the final whistle would never play again."
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