The supervision lifts, the embargo goes with it, and the club can sign a player again. Nobody involved wants to describe the year it took, and nobody involved will forget it.
The board have said in public what they had been saying in private. Results between now and the next meeting decide it, and everybody in the building knows the arithmetic.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Samtredia people have started saying his name in the past tense.
Add another name to the list: Sioni have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Giorgi Kveladze. The answer from Samtredia has not changed — yet.
The first defeat in 8 matches. The manager will say it had to come; the dressing room will say it did not have to come against Gonio; the supporters will say both, in that order, all week.
“I am not thinking past Saturday, and I would advise nobody else to.” The caretaker’s first rule is to pretend the job is small; Giorgi Mchedlidze recited it perfectly.
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Gharib scored, was marked 7.89, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
Marked 7.68. There is a kind of forward whose value only shows up when you count what he was involved in rather than what he finished, and this is the day that argument makes itself.
The shirt still fits. Danylo Chaban is back at Samtredia, and half the ground remembers him in these colours already. Some signings need selling to the town; this one sold itself.
Two or more conceded in each of the last 5 matches. It is not one mistake repeating itself, which would be the easier thing to fix; it is a different one every week.
Eric Barrios 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.
Squad16 Oct 2028
Julen Cordero 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 manager may talk to whoever he likes and may pay nobody. A squad survives a window like this by borrowing, by promoting, and by hoping the injuries land somewhere else.
Gor Manukyan 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.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Giorgi Vekua and Samtredia agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad9 Oct 2028
Julen Cordero 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.
Every club in football 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 somebody has tried it.
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
In brief
The dugoutJulen Cordero has become a man the manager trusts
It has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
120 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Samtredia lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Samtredia can pretend not to have heard.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Samtredia have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Eric Barrios 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.
Squad28 Aug 2028
Words at Samtredia training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Julen Cordero 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.
“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 Samtredia, and it is not being withdrawn.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Otar Gagnidze will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Samtredia the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Julen Cordero was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Every club in football 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 somebody has tried it.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Samtredia, and 6 appearances in 26 say he has earned the hearing.
The dugout17 Jul 2028
The manager has not finished forgetting Eric Barrios'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.
A loan enquiry to Torpedo Kutaisi: cover, or a look at somebody the club cannot afford to buy yet. Either way the answer will come back inside the week.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Samtredia is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Julen Cordero was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Alemão has written the date down.
He trains hard, says the right things and goes home to an empty flat. Nobody at Samtredia has done anything wrong, which is exactly what makes it so difficult to fix.