Marked for Mac van Tilburg
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad28 Aug 2028
122 days out for Bantu Mzwakali after a fracture
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Sioni will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Transfer targets28 Aug 2028
No deal for Warley at that price
Sioni offered $670.0K; Iberia 1999 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.
Transfer targets28 Aug 2028
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.
Squad28 Aug 2028
Dachi Tsnobiladze 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.
Squad28 Aug 2028
53 days, the scan says, and scans are kinder than reality. The fixtures in that window have just become somebody else’s job.
Squad28 Aug 2028
Tempers go at Sioni
Givi Mukbaniani 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 dugout28 Aug 2028
The manager makes an example of Otar Gagnidze
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
The dugout28 Aug 2028
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Giorgi Tsetskhladze trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
The dugout28 Aug 2028
Davit Jikia has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Sioni 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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market21 Aug 2028
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Dachi Tsnobiladze will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Sioni the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Transfer targets21 Aug 2028
The clubs have shaken hands with Rustavi; the player has not yet. Personal terms are next, and personal terms are where more deals die than anybody prints.
Transfer targets21 Aug 2028
$680.0K on the table at Iberia 1999. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Transfer targets21 Aug 2028
$610.0K on the table at Dinamo Batumi. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Transfer targets21 Aug 2028
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Dila have kept their man, and Sioni go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Squad21 Aug 2028
A row about effort at Sioni
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Dachi Tsnobiladze was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Squad21 Aug 2028
Words exchanged at Sioni
Givi Mukbaniani 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 dugout21 Aug 2028
No hiding place for Kakaroto
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Kakaroto, and the manager let it.
The dugout21 Aug 2028
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.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market3 Jul 2028
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Gagra waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Sioni is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Market3 Jul 2028
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Sioni can pretend not to have heard.
Transfer targets3 Jul 2028
Everything agreed with Torpedo Kutaisi, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
Transfer targets3 Jul 2028
No deal for Warley at that price
Sioni offered $670.0K; Iberia 1999 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.
Transfer targets3 Jul 2028
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Telavi have kept their man, and Sioni go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Match1 Jul 2028
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Lado Chikhradze. 1‑0 against Dinamo Tbilisi-2, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Player ratings3 Jul 2028
Lado Chikhradze was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.10. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
Squad3 Jul 2028
Words at Sioni training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nika Chumburidze 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.
Squad3 Jul 2028
Words exchanged at Sioni
Konstantinos Konstantinou 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.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Match6 May 2028
3‑0, and Lado Chikhradze took the headlines on an afternoon when everything Sioni tried came off. Days like this are retold all winter.
Squad8 May 2028
The match ball belongs to Lado Chikhradze, whose 3 goals turned a difficult afternoon into a procession.
Match6 May 2028
Nobody wants to play Sioni right now
3 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
Squad8 May 2028
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Varlam Kilasonia commits to Sioni for another 2 years.
Player ratings8 May 2028
Marked 10.00 — 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.
Squad8 May 2028
Words at Sioni training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Dachi Tsnobiladze 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.
Player ratings8 May 2028
A performance of 8.25 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Squad8 May 2028
Magno 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 Sioni this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match8 May 2028
The half-term report on Sioni
Position 4, 15 points, and every result so far reduced to one line. The second half of the season starts with the same squad and a different set of expectations.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad15 Feb 2027
Tempers go at Sioni
Davit Jikia 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.
Squad15 Feb 2027
Adam Huskić 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 dugout15 Feb 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.
The dugout15 Feb 2027
Nobody at Sioni 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.
Squad15 Feb 2027
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Sioni are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
The dugout15 Feb 2027
“I would rather say it to his face than read about it.” The meeting was requested by the player, which tells you most of what you need to know.