The words a physio says slowly. 106 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.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Sioni will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Sioni can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Luís Fernando 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Dinamo Batumi have kept their man, and Sioni go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
8 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Sioni will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
30 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Sioni lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Sioni this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Sioni will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
19 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Sioni lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“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 The request is on a desk at Sioni, and it is not being withdrawn.
3 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Sioni will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Sioni can pretend not to have heard.
The injury that keeps coming back, keeps being rushed back from, and quietly costs more careers than the dramatic ones. 15 days is the estimate; the honest figure depends on whether anybody is patient.
4 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Sioni 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 Sioni this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Sioni have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Dachi Tsnobiladze 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.
“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 Sioni know it.
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 goal that put Kolkheti ahead was still being replayed on the concourse when Sioni equalised, 4 minutes later. Leads are only worth what you do with them.
In brief
Player ratingsNobody on the pitch touched Antônio Villa
“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 Sioni, and it is not being withdrawn.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Gonzalo provided it, and the 8.59 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
“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 Sioni know it.
Luís Fernando 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.
Squad15 Mar 2027
Vitor Gabriel 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 players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 2‑0, Vakhtang Mchedlidze could afford to be generous.
In brief
The dugoutJefferson dropped after a run of poor form
Successful dribbles: 27. 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.
“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; Sioni are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
16 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.
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.
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 footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Hadrian has, at Sioni, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Hadrian was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Temur Lobjanidze 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.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Bachana Chakvetadze 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.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Goga Kvilitaia is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Lasha Daraselia is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.