There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. João Balbino is living that version at Saburtalo, and it tends to show in the first month.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Saburtalo can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Squad15 Feb 2027
9 new faces, and Saburtalo 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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Jerfesson trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Brasil de Pelotas is saying, and nobody at Saburtalo is enjoying the guessing.
Giorgi Guliashvili 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.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Nicolas Ferri has, at Saburtalo, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
Saburtalo asked and Remo said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Patrick Carvalho signs something — a contract at Saburtalo or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Nika Kvekveskiri 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.
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Squad28 Dec 2026
Words at Saburtalo training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Robinho is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Saburtalo can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Saburtalo this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Saburtalo have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Nika Kvekveskiri 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.
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 Jeremias is on it.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Saburtalo, and both men came out saying it was fine.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Saburtalo, another week without a signature from Marquinhos.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Saburtalo are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Guram Kashia 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Gilberto Júnior was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout5 Oct 2026
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 0‑1 defeat, delivered by Avtandil Mikautadze to a room that had heard them before.
Every club pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time it has been tried.
Successful dribbles: 37. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
Lokomotivi will want this one forgotten quickly: 3‑0, every duel lost, and a long ride home. Saburtalo were ruthless in the way good sides are ruthless.
23 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
A performance of 8.17 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Words at Saburtalo training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Gilberto Júnior is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
The team sheet says it in public every week until it changes. The only version of being dropped a footballer cannot argue with, and the one he takes hardest.
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 1‑0, Avtandil Mikautadze could afford to be generous.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Jerfesson trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Somebody watched every match in the division at the weekend and decided he was the best thing in any of them. A small honour, and most careers end without one.
A deal that was a phone call from completion at lunchtime was dead by midnight. Saburtalo will try again when the window opens; Albacete may not be selling by then.
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Joãozinho 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.
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. Saburtalo will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
Nobody at Saburtalo 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.
Cup ties wait for somebody to seize them, and Asad Asadov obliged against Guria. 2‑1 on the night, and the name in the next round’s hat is Saburtalo.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Asad Asadov, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 7.96
A mark of 7.96 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $402.5K — a club that wants Goga Kiteishvili enough to be asked twice.
$370.0K on the table at Zugdidi. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Guram Kashia 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Mirassol have kept their man, and Saburtalo go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
400 games in this shirt, through managers and relegations and everything else. Service like it is disappearing from the game and the crowd knows what it is watching.
12 combined actions and 6.82. The job he did is the one that shows up as other people looking good, and the only reliable way to notice it is to watch what happens on the afternoons he is missing.
At 21 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Patrick Carvalho is living that version at Saburtalo, and it tends to show in the first month.
Everything agreed with Samtredia, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Tskhinvali is saying, and nobody at Saburtalo is enjoying the guessing.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Revaz Arveladze has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Mikheil Kashia has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.