21 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Dila lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
8 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.
The hardest thing about being 19 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Otar Kvilitaia did not need any: 7.74, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Giorgi Guliashvili 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.
At 23 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
8.41. 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.
The words a physio says slowly. 28 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.
7 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.
Badri Gogoberishvili 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.
Squad3 May 2027
Nikoloz Mali 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.
Marked 8.55 — 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.
Player ratings3 May 2027
Mohamed Kanté was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.23. 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.
37 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Dila lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
95 minutes played. Giorgi Guliashvili found the finish in time that only existed because of earlier delays, and Chikhura went from a point to nothing inside one movement.
6 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.
Player ratings26 Apr 2027
Otar Kvilitaia, 19, plays like he has been here for years — 7.74
A mark of 7.74 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 19-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Rodriguinho 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Nikoloz Mali was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The words a physio says slowly. 45 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.
Rodriguinho 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.
He is 23 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.
53 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Dila lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Two goals and a mark of 8.66 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
4 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.
Giorgi Guliashvili 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.
7 goals in one match, Otar Kvilitaia on the scoresheet, and a scoreline that will look like a misprint. Neutrals could not have asked more of Dila and Zugdidi.
Marked 9.56. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Dila.
Squad12 Apr 2027
Nikoloz Mali 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 words a physio says slowly. 61 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.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Dila have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
The hardest thing about being 19 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Otar Kvilitaia did not need any: 7.68, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
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.
Giorgi Guliashvili 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.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 21 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
76 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Dila lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“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 Dila, and it is not being withdrawn.
The hardest thing about being 19 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Otar Kvilitaia did not need any: 7.73, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
One scored and one made, which is a different afternoon from scoring twice and an easier one to overlook. Marked 7.90, and involved in 2 of his side's goals.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nikoloz Mali 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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Mohamed Kanté has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
99 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Dila lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Giorgi Guliashvili 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.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Dila can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
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 words a physio says slowly. 115 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.
The clubs have shaken hands with Torpedo Kutaisi; the player has not yet. Personal terms are next, and personal terms are where more deals die than anybody prints.
The bid was some way short and Dila did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Boardroom1 Feb 2027
Dila close the window on a squad of their own making
9 in and 5 out, and no more changes for months. The manager has what he has, the supporters have their opinion of it, and the table will have the last word.
Dila had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Bragantino, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Dila this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad1 Feb 2027
Rodriguinho 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Juventude have kept their man, and Dila go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
There is a level at which a footballer stops being tested and starts being contained, and he reached it some time ago. Dila know it, and so does everybody who watches him.
Dila arrived with $220.0K and left with the best player in the building. The board will call it business; the queue at the ticket office will use other words.
Otar Kvilitaia has gone, the accounts have $220.0K in them, and the supporters have the feeling of having been sold something themselves. Good business and a good decision are not always the same thing.
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Boardroom1 Feb 2027
Deadline passes with 3 signed and 3 gone
That is the business done at Tskhinvali 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.
The deal with Botafogo 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.
“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 Tskhinvali know it.
The terraces1 Feb 2027
Tskhinvali spend $210.0K on the signing the town wanted
It is the rarest sequence in football: supporters ask for something, and the club goes and does it. $210.0K for Lasha Ozbetelashvili, and for one week nobody is complaining about anything.
An individual honour is a strange thing in a team game, and the best of them are never argued with. He has had the sort of year that ends with his name being read out, and Tskhinvali have had the benefit of it.
It happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph a local paper has to write. 36 years old, 3 points down on where he was, and a body that has started charging interest on a career.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Tskhinvali 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 Dário Júnior was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Tskhinvali 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.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Tskhinvali has been clear about where Avtandil Kiteishvili stands, which is more than many ever get.
Successful dribbles: 29. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad28 Sep 2026
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.
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.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Revaz Kakabadze after 1‑2, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
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 Davit Tsitaishvili is on it.
The manager wanted a different profile for this opponent, which is a real football reason and no consolation. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
At 35 every good afternoon gets called a throwback, and this one was: 8.06, and nobody on the pitch better.
Squad21 Sep 2026
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.
At 22 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
Marked 8.11 — 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.
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Revaz Kakabadze on a 4‑0 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
94 minutes played. Nika Gamsakhurdia found the finish in time that only existed because of earlier delays, and Sioni went from a point to nothing inside one movement.
The offer from Dinamo Tbilisi for Guram Kvilitaia was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
The hardest thing about being 18 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Otar Kvilitaia did not need any: 8.28, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
5 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Tskhinvali can pretend not to have heard.
Tskhinvali and Dinamo Batumi have settled on $140.0K. 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.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Cruzeiro is saying, and nobody at Tskhinvali is enjoying the guessing.
Aleksandre Daraselia 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.
Cup ties wait for somebody to seize them, and Goga Janelidze obliged against Shukura. 3‑0 on the night, and the name in the next round’s hat is Tskhinvali.
There is exactly one of these per career and it does not usually go like this. 0 on the scoresheet, 7.33 beside the name, and a crowd that had never seen him before chanting it by the end.
“It was not right for me. I am not going to explain why to anybody except the people I owe an explanation to.” A deal agreed between two clubs, and a player who declined to be part of it.
Tskhinvali had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Corinthians, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Marcos Pedro has just signed for Tskhinvali, and for once the answer mattered.
The offer from Guria for Otar Kvilitaia was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Avtandil Kiteishvili and Tskhinvali agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
The offer went to Dila 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.
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.
Tskhinvali 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.