Marked for Ramaric Etou
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market25 Jan 2027
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Dila people have started saying his name in the past tense.
Transfer targets25 Jan 2027
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Shakhtar keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Transfer targets25 Jan 2027
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. River Plate have kept their man, and Dila go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Squad25 Jan 2027
Words exchanged at Dila
Giorgi Kavtaradze and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Transfer targets25 Jan 2027
A loan enquiry to Shakhtar: cover, or a look at somebody the club cannot afford to buy yet. Either way the answer will come back inside the week.
Transfer targets25 Jan 2027
A loan enquiry to Cruzeiro: cover, or a look at somebody the club cannot afford to buy yet. Either way the answer will come back inside the week.
The dugout25 Jan 2027
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
Market25 Jan 2027
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Otar Parulava signs something — a contract at Dila or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
The dugout25 Jan 2027
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Giorgi Jalaghonia trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market11 Jan 2027
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Dila people have started saying his name in the past tense.
Market11 Jan 2027
Sioni come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Dila did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Transfer targets11 Jan 2027
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Squad11 Jan 2027
Alioune Tall in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Dila this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Transfer targets11 Jan 2027
A loan enquiry to Atlético Mineiro: cover, or a look at somebody the club cannot afford to buy yet. Either way the answer will come back inside the week.
Transfer targets11 Jan 2027
A loan move for Rodriguinho is in the works
Dila have made the call to Cruzeiro. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
The dugout11 Jan 2027
Nikoloz Mali gets picked when it counts
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Nikoloz Mali is on it.
Squad11 Jan 2027
Somebody is after Ramaric Etou’s shirt
A new face in his position, and Ramaric Etou suddenly has to win back what he thought he owned. Dila have promised nothing — clubs rarely do at this stage.
Market11 Jan 2027
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Tedo Kikabidze’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad28 Dec 2026
Words exchanged at Dila
Alioune Tall and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
The dugout28 Dec 2026
Ramaric Etou gets picked when it counts
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Ramaric Etou is on it.
Market28 Dec 2026
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Dila know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match26 Nov 2026
Dila do the business in Europe
3‑1. Continental football is where a club finds out what it actually is, and Dila came through the finding-out well against Haladas.
Player ratings30 Nov 2026
Two goals and a mark of 9.19 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Squad30 Nov 2026
8 saves, and a scoreline the ten men in front of him had no right to. Goalkeepers only get noticed on the bad days; this was one of the other ones.
The dugout30 Nov 2026
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Match26 Nov 2026
The drought breaks for Dila
9 without a win is the sort of run that changes how a town talks about its club, and Haladas were the afternoon it stopped. Nothing is fixed by one result and everything feels different by one.
Squad30 Nov 2026
Defences have started doubling up on Shota Shekiladze
18 goals and a season average of 7.34 will do that. The space he used to find has gone; he keeps scoring anyway, which is the mark of the real thing.
Squad30 Nov 2026
Words exchanged at Dila
Giorgi Kavtaradze and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
The terraces30 Nov 2026
He is 22 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
Player ratings30 Nov 2026
A performance of 8.35 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad2 Nov 2026
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Badri Gogoberishvili commits to Dila for another 4 years.
Squad2 Nov 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Dila this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The dugout2 Nov 2026
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
The dugout2 Nov 2026
“I would rather say it to his face than read about it.” The meeting was requested by the player, which tells you most of what you need to know.
Market2 Nov 2026
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Dila know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Loan watch2 Nov 2026
8 appearances at Sioni and the goals have stopped going in. Dila lent out a goalkeeper and are watching somebody else’s season get better every week.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad12 Oct 2026
Tempers go at Dila
Giorgi Kavtaradze was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Squad12 Oct 2026
14 new faces, and Dila are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
Squad12 Oct 2026
4 Dila players away with their countries
The training ground goes quiet for a fortnight. 4 men have gone off to be somebody else’s players, and the manager is left with the ones nobody has called.
The dugout12 Oct 2026
Otar Parulava has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Dila will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
Market12 Oct 2026
The name of Nikoloz Mali keeps appearing in other people's back pages. Dila say nothing, which says plenty.
Squad12 Oct 2026
He goes off to be somebody else’s player for a fortnight. Dila lose him for the window and would like him returned in the condition he left.
The dugout12 Oct 2026
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
The dugout12 Oct 2026
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Dila, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Market12 Oct 2026
The list is a quiet document with a loud meaning. Luka Sanikidze may talk to anybody who asks, and everybody at the club understands what that means.