Ulugbek Bakayev

Ulugbek Istamovich Bakayev was born on 28 November 1978 in Bukhara and plays as a forward. A product of the Bukhara club, he scored 29 goals in 80 games for it in 1997–2000. On 5 November 2000 he scored six goals against Temiryulchi (6–1), a single-match record in the Uzbek league.

In 2001–2003 he played in Russia for CSKA Moscow, Torpedo-ZIL and Neftekhimik. At Kazakhstan's Tobol in 2004–2007 he scored 55 goals in 111 league games; he won the Kazakhstan Cup with the club in 2007 and, in 2010, its first Kazakhstan Premier League title. With Bunyodkor in 2008–2009 he won the 2008 Uzbek League and Cup, and in 2009 he was loaned to Dinamo Samarkand.

In 2011 he scored 18 goals for Zhetysu, who finished second; in 2012–2014 he played for Irtysh Pavlodar (runners-up and Kazakhstan Cup winners in 2012). He returned to Bukhara in 2014 and played for Navbahor in 2015, ending his playing career. He was top scorer of the Kazakhstan Premier League in 2004, 2010, 2011 and 2012, won its «Almaz» best-player award in 2011 and 2012, and was named Kazakhstan's footballer of the year by GOAL magazine in 2012.

He scored 14 goals in 53 games for Uzbekistan in 2001–2014, including two against Jordan (2–1) at the 2011 Asian Cup, where the team finished fourth. His farewell match was against Oman in Tashkent on 29 May 2014. As a coach he led Bukhara (2017–2018), Sogdiana Jizzakh (2019–2022; Super League runners-up in 2021) and, from 2023, Bukhara again.