Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Vitinho has just signed for Meshakhte Tkibuli, and for once the answer mattered.
Marios Pourzitidis 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.
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.
He is 20, and nobody at Meshakhte Tkibuli signed him for this season. Deals like this are judged in four years, by people who may not still be in the building.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Meshakhte Tkibuli, and both men came out saying it was fine.
It is the least glamorous business a club does and the reason seasons do not collapse in February. Vitinho is here for the weeks when three men are injured and somebody still has to play.
Position 6, 29 points, and a run-in that decides whether next season has Thursday nights in it. Nobody is calling it a race yet, which is what people say during one.
Szabolcs Kátai 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.
Squad6 Sep 2027
Nikita Pavlov 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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Chaika M know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Chaika M, and both men came out saying it was fine.
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Chaika M can pretend not to have heard.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Chaika M they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
He is 21 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
Squad30 Aug 2027
Words at Chaika M training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Azat Hakobyan 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.
15 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.
The dugout30 Aug 2027
The view from the dugout
“We did not lose. Some weeks that is all you get, and I would rather have the point than not.” Tikhon Milyukov chose the glass-half-full version of 0‑0; the supporters left with the other one.
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 4 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
Szabolcs Kátai 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 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.