Marked for Nicolas
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market15 May 2028
Kalani Almeida has one foot out of the door
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Dinamo Tbilisi they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad15 May 2028
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.
Player ratings15 May 2028
A performance of 8.16 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Squad15 May 2028
“The easiest signature of my career.” Nicolas and Dinamo Tbilisi agree another 3 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Boardroom15 May 2028
The music was off and the showers ran late. What was said in that dressing room stays there, but Saturday will publish the minutes.
The dugout15 May 2028
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 1‑3 Davit Chakvetadze left the room before anybody could ask which.
Squad15 May 2028
Iyed Haj Khalifa 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 dugout15 May 2028
The plan did not have a place for Algassime Bah
Nobody at Dinamo Tbilisi is suggesting he is out of form. The manager simply wanted somebody with a different set of qualities for ninety specific minutes, and there is nothing a player can train to fix that.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Player ratings24 Apr 2028
A brace, and Santiago Paiva takes the afternoon — 8.42
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Santiago Paiva provided it, and the 8.42 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Squad24 Apr 2028
Irakli Azarovi and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Match22 Apr 2028
2‑3 to Gagra, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Squad24 Apr 2028
200 times in these colours, in all weathers and under four or five different managers. That kind of service is quietly disappearing from the game.
The dugout24 Apr 2028
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 2‑3 defeat, delivered by Davit Chakvetadze to a room that had heard them before.
The dugout24 Apr 2028
Nicolas gets it from the manager
“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.
Squad24 Apr 2028
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Iyed Haj Khalifa was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout24 Apr 2028
The plan did not have a place for César Augusto
Nobody at Dinamo Tbilisi is suggesting he is out of form. The manager simply wanted somebody with a different set of qualities for ninety specific minutes, and there is nothing a player can train to fix that.
Looking ahead24 Apr 2028
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Dila in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market22 Nov 2027
Kalani Almeida has one foot out of the door
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Dinamo Tbilisi they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad22 Nov 2027
Tengo Gobeshia 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 dugout22 Nov 2027
Nikoloz Ninua back under a manager who knows him
The new man at Dinamo Tbilisi has worked with Nikoloz Ninua before and it went well. He arrives with a view of the player already formed, which is worth more than any pre-season.
Loan watch22 Nov 2027
“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 Dinamo Tbilisi, and 3 appearances in 22 say he has earned the hearing.
The dugout22 Nov 2027
Iyed Haj Khalifa asks for a word with the manager
“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.
The dugout22 Nov 2027
Tite 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 Tite is on it.
Squad22 Nov 2027
The shrug has gone, the language is coming, and he now argues in training like somebody who expects to be here next year. Half a signing's value is this and none of it appears on a fee.
Squad22 Nov 2027
Nicolas starts on the language
Two hours a week with a tutor, which is the least glamorous thing at Dinamo Tbilisi and the one that decides whether a foreign signing is still here in two years.
Boardroom22 Nov 2027
14 graduates from an academy now rated 11 out of 20. A club this size does not survive any other way, and every name on that list is known in the town.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market20 Sep 2027
Gabriel Jesus hands in a written request
“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.
Market20 Sep 2027
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Dinamo Tbilisi is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Boardroom20 Sep 2027
The rules permit it and it stings anyway. Gabriel Jesus has agreed terms with Gareji Sagarejo for the summer, and until then he pulls on this shirt as a player who has already chosen his next one.
Squad20 Sep 2027
The step up is real for Nicolas
At 21 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
The dugout20 Sep 2027
Nikoloz Ninua back under a manager who knows him
The new man at Dinamo Tbilisi has worked with Nikoloz Ninua before and it went well. He arrives with a view of the player already formed, which is worth more than any pre-season.
Squad20 Sep 2027
Jean Carlos 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.
Squad20 Sep 2027
It happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph a local paper has to write. 35 years old, 3 points down on where he was, and a body that has started charging interest on a career.
Squad20 Sep 2027
Too much change too quickly at Dinamo Tbilisi
8 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
Loan watch20 Sep 2027
“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 Dinamo Tbilisi, and 3 appearances in 13 say he has earned the hearing.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match5 Jun 2027
Whatever happens, Dinamo Tbilisi do not lose
14 games unbeaten now. Some were earned and some were survived, but a habit is forming — and habits are the hardest thing in football to play against.
Match5 Jun 2027
2 goals to the good, and then a slow surrender of everything that had been earned. Paulinho will not be the one blamed for it, but nobody at Dinamo Tbilisi escapes the conversation that follows a collapse like this.
Market7 Jun 2027
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Dinamo Tbilisi people have started saying his name in the past tense.
Market7 Jun 2027
Telavi 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.
Squad7 Jun 2027
There were 7 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Transfer targets7 Jun 2027
Dinamo Tbilisi have gone to Rodina with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
Player ratings7 Jun 2027
7.87, 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.
Boardroom7 Jun 2027
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $523.9K — a club that wants Aleksandre Amisulashvili enough to be asked twice.