Marked for Ruben Compaoré
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market11 Jan 2027
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Transfer targets11 Jan 2027
The deal with Dinamo Tbilisi is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
Squad11 Jan 2027
Words exchanged at Dila
Shota Shekiladze 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.
Squad11 Jan 2027
A row about effort at Dila
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Marcos Pedro was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Transfer targets11 Jan 2027
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Yenisey have kept their man, and Dila go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Market11 Jan 2027
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Shota Kiteishvili 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.
Market11 Jan 2027
The phone has started ringing about Ruben Compaoré again, and this time the name on the line is Tskhinvali. Dila are listening politely and promising nothing.
Transfer targets11 Jan 2027
Dila have made the call to Ferro Carril Oeste. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
The dugout11 Jan 2027
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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market11 Jan 2027
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Shukura waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Tskhinvali is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Market11 Jan 2027
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Transfer targets11 Jan 2027
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Merani have kept their man, and Tskhinvali go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Squad11 Jan 2027
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Tskhinvali this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Market11 Jan 2027
Add another name to the list: Chikhura have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Stefano Peretti. The answer from Tskhinvali has not changed — yet.
Squad11 Jan 2027
Guram Japaridze 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.
Transfer targets11 Jan 2027
A loan enquiry to Dinamo Tbilisi: cover, or a look at somebody the club cannot afford to buy yet. Either way the answer will come back inside the week.
Transfer targets11 Jan 2027
A loan enquiry to Dila: cover, or a look at somebody the club cannot afford to buy yet. Either way the answer will come back inside the week.
The dugout11 Jan 2027
“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.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Market7 Sep 2026
“I know what people will say. I know what I want, and it is here.” Ethnikos Achnas had the fee agreed and the shirt ready; they did not have the player, and now they will not.
Match5 Sep 2026
Dila make it 5 in a row
Momentum is a hard thing to buy and an easy thing to lose, and right now Dila have 5 straight wins of it.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
Deadline passes with 18 signed and 5 gone
That is the business done at Dila until the window opens again. Whether it was enough will be answered on Saturdays rather than in a column, and the first Saturday is close.
Market7 Sep 2026
The fee was agreed and the flight was looked at — and then the phone stopped ringing. Zugdidi moved on, Ruben Compaoré reports back to Dila, and everybody pretends Monday is just Monday.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Words at Dila training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Marcos Pedro 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.
Transfer targets7 Sep 2026
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Transfer targets7 Sep 2026
The clock did what Zugdidi would not, and ended it. Supporters who watched the countdown will spend the next window doing it again.
Match5 Sep 2026
Dila keep winning on the road
3 away wins in a row. Travelling support is the truest kind, and this season it is being repaid in the only currency that counts.
Player ratings7 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 19. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 37. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad17 Aug 2026
2 kept out in the shoot-out, and a stadium that will still be describing them in twenty years. A goalkeeper only needs one of these to be remembered forever.
Match12 Aug 2026
Dila through in the cup
A 1‑1 win over Sioni, and the draw for the next round can be watched with some interest for once.
Match15 Aug 2026
Rarely has this fixture seen a display like it: 4‑0 against Guria, and it could have been more.
Squad17 Aug 2026
3 goals in one afternoon from one man. The other players were also present, a witness confirmed.
Market17 Aug 2026
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Dila people have started saying his name in the past tense.
Transfer targets17 Aug 2026
Dila and Shukura have settled on $590.0K. The rest belongs to the player and his agent, and a supporter who has watched one of these before knows not to buy the shirt yet.
Market17 Aug 2026
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Squad17 Aug 2026
A falling-out at Dila
Shota Shekiladze and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.