Marked for Mikheil Kvaratskhelia
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market29 May 2028
“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 The request is on a desk at Tskhinvali, and it is not being withdrawn.
Match27 May 2028
Whatever happens, Tskhinvali do not lose
7 games unbeaten now. Some were earned and some were survived, but a habit is forming — and habits are the hardest thing in football to play against.
Match27 May 2028
Tskhinvali make home a hard place to visit
10 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
Squad29 May 2028
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.
Squad29 May 2028
Words at Tskhinvali training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Dário Júnior 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 dugout29 May 2028
The manager makes an example of Alexandru Bancu
“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.
Squad29 May 2028
It happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph a local paper has to write. 34 years old, 3 points down on where he was, and a body that has started charging interest on a career.
The dugout29 May 2028
Nobody at Tskhinvali 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.
The dugout29 May 2028
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.” Revaz Kakabadze chose the glass-half-full version of 0‑0; the supporters left with the other one.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad6 Dec 2027
There are footballers who have a good season and footballers a season is remembered for, and the second kind get their names read out in a hall in the summer. Tskhinvali will be quietly delighted and privately nervous.
Squad6 Dec 2027
João Pedro Tchoca and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad6 Dec 2027
A row about effort at Tskhinvali
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Dário Júnior was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Squad6 Dec 2027
It happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph a local paper has to write. 34 years old, 3 points down on where he was, and a body that has started charging interest on a career.
The dugout6 Dec 2027
When it matters, Patrick plays
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.
Market6 Dec 2027
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Guram Kvilitaia’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Squad12 Jul 2027
Davit Tsitaishvili damages knee ligaments — 94 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 94 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Market12 Jul 2027
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Sapovnela waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Tskhinvali is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Player ratings12 Jul 2027
Patrick scores twice — 7.83
Two goals and a mark of 7.83 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Match10 Jul 2027
5 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
Market12 Jul 2027
“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 Tskhinvali, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad12 Jul 2027
“The easiest signature of my career.” Guram Kvilitaia and Tskhinvali agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad12 Jul 2027
Cristhian Loor and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Match10 Jul 2027
A 3‑1 win over Guria, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Squad12 Jul 2027
Dário Júnior 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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
The dugout29 Mar 2027
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Tskhinvali may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Squad29 Mar 2027
David Matei 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 Tskhinvali this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad29 Mar 2027
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Filipe Cirne commits to Tskhinvali for another 1 years.
Squad29 Mar 2027
A row about effort at Tskhinvali
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Dário Júnior was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Squad29 Mar 2027
It happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph a local paper has to write. 33 years old, 3 points down on where he was, and a body that has started charging interest on a career.
The dugout29 Mar 2027
Pedro Romano gets it from the manager
“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.
Loan watch29 Mar 2027
“I did not go to Sioni to sit and watch. I want to come back to Tskhinvali and fight for my place.” 3 appearances in 9 matches say the rest.
The dugout29 Mar 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.
Market29 Mar 2027
The name of Goga Janelidze keeps appearing in other people's back pages. Tskhinvali say nothing, which says plenty.
In brief
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The dugout
Thiago Souza has been promised minutes
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Looking ahead
Looking ahead: the trip to Shukura