Online Sports Journalist Craig Birch butts heads with Steve Madeley and Nick Mashiter to establish what we actually know about England’s opponents Kazakhstan.

For those of you not in the know, here are 10 things about Kazhakstan that may come in use in the pub tonight: -

1, The former Soviet state’s football team is ranked 131st by FIFA, sandwiched between Hong Kong and Singapore.

2, Irtysh Pavlodar have been the most successful club since independence, winning the championship, known since last year as the Kazakhstan Premier League, five times since 1993. The current champions are FC Aktobe.

3, Kazakhstan’s first international match was on 1 June 1992 when they beat central Asian neighbours Turkmenistan 1-0.

4, Dutchman Arno Pijpers was sacked as the team’s head coach, following last month’s home defeat by Ukraine. He was replaced by German Bernd Storck.

5, It covers an area the size of western Europe but has a population of 15.5million. It’s still the world’s ninth largest country.

6, Nursultan Abish-uly Nazarbayev remains president after claiming 90 per cent of the votes in a disputed 2005 election. He has been president since 1990.

7, An abundance of natural resources, including oil, and rich agricultural land mean Kazakhstan’s economy is bigger than those of its Central Asian neighbours combined.

Per capita GDP last year was US dollars 11,000 (£6,300) compared to 35,000 (£19,900) in Britain.

8, Almaty was the capital city until December 1998 when it transferred to smaller Astana (population 600,000).

9, The Astana Team, sponsored by a group of state-owned Kazakh companies, withdrew from the 2007 Tour de France in the wake of a positive drugs test given by leading rider Alexander Vinokourov.

10, A boom in gambling fuelled by the country’s new oil wealth led to a heavy clampdown last year. Before gambling was restricted to new resorts outside Almaty and Astana, the country had as many casinos as the USA, despite having a population a 20th of the size.