Marked for Kayque
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market31 May 2027
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Dinamo Tbilisi, and it is not being withdrawn.
Player ratings31 May 2027
Nobody could get near Kayque
Successful dribbles: 26. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad31 May 2027
Táles and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
The dugout31 May 2027
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Player ratings31 May 2027
Marked 8.18 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Squad31 May 2027
100 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.
Match29 May 2027
The board was up, the win was priced in, and then Lokomotivi scored. There is no worse minute to concede in and the ground emptied in the silence that follows one.
The dugout31 May 2027
The manager has not finished forgetting Ruan Tressoldi's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
Match29 May 2027
1‑1, and both dressing rooms will call it two points lost. A draw that asked plenty of questions and answered none of them.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market26 Apr 2027
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Dinamo Tbilisi, and it is not being withdrawn.
Player ratings26 Apr 2027
Pierre Mounguengue, 19, plays like he has been here for years — 7.98
A mark of 7.98 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 19-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Squad26 Apr 2027
The medical room confirms 57 days on the sidelines for Javier Martínez, and a plan built around him now has to be rebuilt.
Match24 Apr 2027
Hard to beat is not the same as winning, but 7 matches without defeat is a foundation Dinamo Tbilisi did not have in the autumn.
Squad26 Apr 2027
Giorgi Loria and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Player ratings26 Apr 2027
Nobody could get near Kayque
Successful dribbles: 20. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Match24 Apr 2027
Every run ends on an afternoon somebody had marked down as routine. This one went 6 matches, which is long enough that a town had stopped counting, and short enough that it will remember exactly who stopped it.
Squad26 Apr 2027
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and Dinamo Tbilisi know it.
The dugout26 Apr 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Welton Júnior, and the manager let it.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Match31 Mar 2027
A 1‑0 win over Sapovnela, a place in the next round, and the quiet arithmetic every supporter does on the walk home: how many more until a final?
Market5 Apr 2027
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Dinamo Tbilisi, and it is not being withdrawn.
The dugout5 Apr 2027
Ruan Tressoldi: that is not what I was promised
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Dinamo Tbilisi have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Player ratings5 Apr 2027
A brace, and Javier Martínez takes the afternoon — 9.13
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Javier Martínez provided it, and the 9.13 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Match3 Apr 2027
Momentum is a hard thing to buy and an easy thing to lose, and right now Dinamo Tbilisi have 4 straight wins of it.
Player ratings5 Apr 2027
Up for the corner, and Nikoloz Ninua delivers — 7.99
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Nikoloz Ninua scored, was marked 7.99, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
Squad5 Apr 2027
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 19 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Player ratings5 Apr 2027
Kayque runs at them all day
Successful dribbles: 23. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad5 Apr 2027
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Dinamo Tbilisi this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market18 Jan 2027
The bid was some way short and Dinamo Tbilisi did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Market18 Jan 2027
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Dinamo Tbilisi, and it is not being withdrawn.
Market18 Jan 2027
The fee was agreed and the flight was looked at — and then the phone stopped ringing. Sioni moved on, Mikheil Makatsaria reports back to Dinamo Tbilisi, and everybody pretends Monday is just Monday.
Squad18 Jan 2027
Giorgi Loria 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 targets18 Jan 2027
Dinamo Tbilisi asked and Torpedo Kutaisi said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Transfer targets18 Jan 2027
A loan move for Wallace Yan is in the works
Dinamo Tbilisi have made the call to Flamengo. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
Transfer targets18 Jan 2027
A loan move for Antonio Arena is in the works
Dinamo Tbilisi have made the call to AS Roma. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
The dugout18 Jan 2027
Giorgi Kharaishvili is still being punished for one mistake
Nobody will confirm it and the team sheets confirm it every week. One error has bought him a spell as second choice that is already longer than the error deserved.
Market18 Jan 2027
Dinamo Tbilisi have let the market know Nikoloz Ninua can be had. No price in the advert, but everyone in the trade knows roughly what it says.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market11 Jan 2027
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Zugdidi waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Dinamo Tbilisi is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Market11 Jan 2027
“I know what people will say. I know what I want, and it is here.” Chikhura had the fee agreed and the shirt ready; they did not have the player, and now they will not.
Market11 Jan 2027
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Dinamo Tbilisi can pretend not to have heard.
Market11 Jan 2027
Shukura come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Dinamo Tbilisi did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Squad11 Jan 2027
Táles 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 Dinamo Tbilisi this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad11 Jan 2027
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Abdoulaye Yoro is 20, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad11 Jan 2027
A move Kayque would have made for nothing
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Kayque is living that version at Dinamo Tbilisi, and it tends to show in the first month.
Boardroom11 Jan 2027
The paperwork is done long before the player is. Warley has agreed terms to come here when his current deal runs out, which means Dinamo Tbilisi have spent a summer's transfer budget on a phone call.
Transfer targets11 Jan 2027
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Dila have kept their man, and Dinamo Tbilisi go back to a list with one name crossed off it.