Marked for Ricardo Santos
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match21 Jun 2028
A 1‑0 win over Zugdidi, and the draw for the next round can be watched with some interest for once.
Player ratings26 Jun 2028
Defensive actions: 29. He was first to everything and second to nothing, and the goalkeeper had an easy day because of it.
Player ratings26 Jun 2028
Zurab Janelidze, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 8.04
A mark of 8.04 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Player ratings26 Jun 2028
Defensive actions: 28. He was first to everything and second to nothing, and the goalkeeper had an easy day because of it.
Player ratings26 Jun 2028
Nikša Vujčić goes up and wins it — 7.79
A defender on the scoresheet, which happens rarely enough that everybody in the ground remembers who took the corner. 1 for him, and a mark of 7.79 for the rest of it.
Squad26 Jun 2028
Raúl Quiroga 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.
Match24 Jun 2028
Still nobody has beaten Lokomotivi
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.
Squad26 Jun 2028
Words at Lokomotivi training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nikša Vujčić 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.
Match24 Jun 2028
Guria made Lokomotivi work for it, but the scoreboard read 1‑0 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad5 Jun 2028
Raúl Quiroga 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 Lokomotivi this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad5 Jun 2028
Nikša Vujčić 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 terraces5 Jun 2028
At 21 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
Match3 Jun 2028
It finished 2‑0, and it was Raúl Quiroga’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Lokomotivi.
Squad5 Jun 2028
“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.
Player ratings5 Jun 2028
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 19 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
Squad5 Jun 2028
“The easiest signature of my career.” Ricardo Santos and Lokomotivi agree another 3 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Boardroom5 Jun 2028
$468.5K on the table at Lokomotivi
The board have answered with money instead of encouragement, which is the only answer a manager ever wants. Spending it well is now entirely his problem.
Player ratings5 Jun 2028
Marked 7.77 on an afternoon he ran from the first whistle to the last. Whatever else went wrong, Lokomotivi had the best player on the pitch.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad15 Nov 2027
A fracture rules Juho Pirttijoki out for 89 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Lokomotivi will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Squad15 Nov 2027
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Lokomotivi may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Squad15 Nov 2027
Raúl Quiroga 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 Lokomotivi this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad11 Jan 2027
A knee injury of the worst kind for Mikhail Philippov
44 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Lokomotivi lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad11 Jan 2027
Raúl Quiroga 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.
Squad11 Jan 2027
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Aleksandre Turkia and Lokomotivi agree another 4 years.