26 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Telavi lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“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 Telavi know it.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Jaduli Iobashvili was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Merani in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
Walfrido 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.
Squad25 Jan 2027
Words at Telavi training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Lucas Possignolo 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.
Nobody makes a documentary about a hamstring and everybody in the game fears one. Telavi will be careful with the return date, because the second one is always worse than the first.
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.
Nobody at Telavi will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
Lucas Possignolo 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.
Squad18 Jan 2027
Words at Telavi training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jaduli Iobashvili 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.
The list is a quiet document with a loud meaning. Jaduli Iobashvili may talk to anybody who asks, and everybody at the club understands what that means.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Telavi. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Telavi this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad28 Dec 2026
Words at Telavi training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jaduli Iobashvili 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.
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.
Nobody at Telavi will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Telavi know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
“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; Telavi are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Telavi this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Jaduli Iobashvili was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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.
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.
“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 Telavi know it.
Lucas Possignolo 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.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Words at Telavi training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Marcos Echeverría 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.
Lucas Possignolo 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.
Everybody saw it before anybody said it. At 33 the numbers say 3 points down on what he was, and the question for Telavi is how to handle a man they owe a great deal.
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.
Nobody at Telavi will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Telavi can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Walfrido 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.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Words at Telavi training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Lucas Possignolo 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.
He is doing things every Saturday that nobody around him can answer. It is flattering for a season and a problem after that, and Telavi know which stage they are at.
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.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Ceará signs something — a contract at Telavi or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Lucas Possignolo 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Jaduli Iobashvili was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
23 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
Walfrido and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Words at Telavi training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Lucas Possignolo 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.
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. Telavi will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
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.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Gustavo Simões is living that version at Telavi, and it tends to show in the first month.
Telavi offered $170.0K; Dinamo Tbilisi said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Words at Telavi training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jaduli Iobashvili 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.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Telavi, another week without a signature from Ítalo Henrique.
The system has changed and his position has not. A footballer can improve his form; he cannot improve the manager’s formation, and that is the whole of the problem.
Nobody at Telavi will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
Successful dribbles: 24. 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.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Coritiba keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Jaduli Iobashvili was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Telavi asked and Samtredia said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Telavi, another week without a signature from Warlen.
Athletico Paranaense have been asked whether they would lend him. Loans are agreed quickly or not at all, and this one will be one or the other by the weekend.