Marked for Davit Gotsiridze
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad11 Jan 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 Dila this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad11 Jan 2027
A move Nelson Eliseche 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. Nelson Eliseche is living that version at Dila, and it tends to show in the first month.
Squad11 Jan 2027
Words at Dila training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Sagir Arce 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.
Market11 Jan 2027
The phone has started ringing about Luka Sanikidze again, and this time the name on the line is Dinamo Batumi. Dila are listening politely and promising nothing.
Squad11 Jan 2027
The manager makes an example of Dobrivoj Rusov
“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.
Market11 Jan 2027
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Gabriel Moulero has his answer from Dila; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match10 Dec 2026
2‑2 against Pogon, and a performance that will be described to people who were not there for the rest of the season. Lasha Menteshashvili was at the centre of the description.
Squad14 Dec 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Claude Kouakou
27 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Dila lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad14 Dec 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.
Player ratings14 Dec 2026
Jemal Tabidze pops up at the right end — 7.24
7.24, 1 on the scoresheet, and the specific comedy of a back-four player celebrating like somebody who does this every week. He does not, and that is exactly why the ground reacted the way it did.
Squad14 Dec 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.
Squad14 Dec 2026
Words at Dila training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Aleksi Paananen 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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad16 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.
Squad16 Nov 2026
Words at Dila training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Aleksi Paananen 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.
Squad16 Nov 2026
The manager makes an example of Dobrivoj Rusov
“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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad26 Oct 2026
Giorgi Kobakhidze damages knee ligaments — 26 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 26 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Match22 Oct 2026
Dila do the business in Europe
0‑0. Continental football is where a club finds out what it actually is, and Dila came through the finding-out well against HNK Vukovar 1991.
Match22 Oct 2026
Still nobody has beaten Dila
The unbeaten run reaches 15. Some of them were wins and some were escapes, but a side that refuses to lose is a side other dressing rooms talk about.
Match26 Oct 2026
Dila are in among the leaders
Position 1 and 23 points on the board. Nobody at the ground will say the word out loud yet, and everybody at the ground is thinking it.
Squad26 Oct 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.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Tempers go at Dila
Jean-Marc Tiboué 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.
Player ratings26 Oct 2026
Successful dribbles: 18. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Blankson Anoff falls out with a teammate over standards
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.
Player ratings26 Oct 2026
Defensive actions: 14. He was first to everything and second to nothing, and the goalkeeper had an easy day because of it.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad12 Oct 2026
Tempers go at Dila
Jean-Marc Tiboué 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
Aleksi Paananen falls out with a teammate over standards
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.
Squad12 Oct 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.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad24 Aug 2026
A shoot-out is remembered by its ending, and this one ends with Davit Kereselidze: 2 kept out, and a set of supporters who will describe every one of them for the next twenty years.
Match19 Aug 2026
Cup progress for Dila
A 0‑0 win over Saburtalo, a place in the next round, and the quiet arithmetic every supporter does on the walk home: how many more until a final?
Squad24 Aug 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.
Match22 Aug 2026
Still nobody has beaten Dila
The unbeaten run reaches 6. Some of them were wins and some were escapes, but a side that refuses to lose is a side other dressing rooms talk about.
Market24 Aug 2026
Add another name to the list: Shukura have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Claude Kouakou. The answer from Dila has not changed — yet.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Words at Dila training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Aleksi Paananen 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.
Match22 Aug 2026
Lokomotivi made Dila work for it, but the scoreboard read 2‑0 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Squad24 Aug 2026
“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.
Market24 Aug 2026
Ararat-Armenia are about to pick up the phone
A conversation is coming this week. Dila will put a number on him, and from there it stops being football and becomes arithmetic.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Match12 Aug 2026
Cup ties wait for somebody to seize them, and Claude Kouakou obliged against Sioni. 5‑1 on the night, and the name in the next round’s hat is Dila.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
A brace, and Otar Parulava takes the afternoon — 8.27
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Otar Parulava provided it, and the 8.27 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 8.17, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Match15 Aug 2026
Dila make it 4 in a row
Momentum is a hard thing to buy and an easy thing to lose, and right now Dila have 4 straight wins of it.
Market17 Aug 2026
Dila say no — this time
The offer from Samtredia for Abdulmalik Olatunji was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Tempers go at Dila
Jean-Marc Tiboué 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.
Match12 Aug 2026
Claude Kouakou among the goals in a wild afternoon
6 goals in one match, Claude Kouakou on the scoresheet, and a scoreline that will look like a misprint. Neutrals could not have asked more of Dila and Sioni.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Sagir Arce falls out with a teammate over standards
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.
The terraces17 Aug 2026
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 21-year-old it feels ownership of. Davit Gotsiridze has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.