“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Chikhura can pretend not to have heard.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Chikhura have done the hard part with Dinamo Batumi, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
Successful dribbles: 22. 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.
Chikhura asked and Polissia said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Marked 8.16 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Squad28 Jun 2027
Words at Chikhura training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ruben Gauto 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.
Everybody at Chikhura saw it before anybody said it, which is how this always goes. At 36 the decline is real and measurable — 3 points — and the only question left is how the club handles somebody it owes a great deal to.
“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 The request is on a desk at Chikhura, and it is not being withdrawn.
Every run ends on an afternoon somebody had marked down as routine. This one went 8 matches, which is long enough that a town had stopped counting, and short enough that it will remember exactly who stopped 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 Chikhura know it.
The offer went to Dinamo Tbilisi this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
Squad14 Jun 2027
Words at Chikhura training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Yan Silva 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.
Chikhura asked and Dila said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Yan Silva 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.
It finished 1‑0, and it was Lucas’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Chikhura.
Squad26 Apr 2027
Words at Chikhura training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ruben Gauto 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 players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 1‑0, Shota Kvaratskhelia could afford to be generous.
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 Ilia Buzaladze is on it.
6 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Chikhura can tell you which week it ends in.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Yan Silva was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Tray Fuller 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 door stayed shut a long time after the final whistle. What was said in there is between them; whether it worked is between them and Saturday.
The dugout22 Mar 2027
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 0‑3 defeat, delivered by Shota Kvaratskhelia to a room that had heard them before.
7 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.
4 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Chikhura this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Senior shirt numbers handed to boys the coaches have known since they were twelve. Most will not make it and all of them have already done the hard part.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Chikhura can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Valentino Tagliabue was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Dato Chakvetadze has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
Dinamo Batumi go through and Chikhura go home, 0‑1 the scoreline that did it. The dressing room will call the league the priority now, because that is what dressing rooms say.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Chikhura have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
“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 Chikhura know it.
3 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Chikhura can tell you which week it ends in.
Shota Apridonidze 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.
Successful dribbles: 19. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
The dugout30 Nov 2026
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 0‑1 Shota Kvaratskhelia left the room before anybody could ask which.
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.
Involvement in 2 goals, from a player who spent the ninety minutes doing the thing a manager actually wants: being where the ball was going to end up. 7.91 beside his name.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Tskhinvali have kept their man, and Chikhura go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Successful dribbles: 17. 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.
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Shota Apridonidze, and the manager let it.
Squad24 Aug 2026
7 new faces, and Chikhura are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Chikhura this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Guram Tsitaishvili 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. Levan Tsitaishvili is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Guram Daraselia 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. Lasha Ananidze is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Successful dribbles: 18. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
The dugout10 Aug 2026
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 0‑1 Shota Kvaratskhelia left the room before anybody could ask which.
In brief
SquadWords at Chikhura training over how hard people work
Chikhura asked and Torpedo Kutaisi said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
“There is a gap, and pretending there is not helps nobody.” Neither side has moved, and the calendar is working for exactly one of them.
The dugout3 Aug 2026
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 0‑2 Shota Kvaratskhelia left the room before anybody could ask which.
Chikhura have made the call to Dinamo Batumi. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.