The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Lasha Lobjanidze did not need any: 7.88, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
“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 The request is on a desk at Tskhinvali, and it is not being withdrawn.
Tskhinvali had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Fortaleza, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
The first defeat in 8 matches. The manager will say it had to come; the dressing room will say it did not have to come against Saburtalo; the supporters will say both, in that order, all week.
Lasha Lobjanidze 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.
1‑3 to Saburtalo, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Squad12 Jun 2028
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.
Luka Avaliani 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.
5 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
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.
A year in and the city has not opened up, the language has not come, and lunch is eaten alone more often than anybody at Sioni would admit. It shows on Saturdays.
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.
Vakhtang Shengelia 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 am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Tskhinvali, and 1 appearances in 10 say he has earned the hearing.
5 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
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.
A year in and the language has not come, the city has not opened up, and he eats alone more often than anybody at Tskhinvali would like to admit. It is showing on Saturdays.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Tskhinvali, and both men came out saying it was fine.
The message was aimed at the stands as much as the dressing room: Guram Kvilitaia plays, and the argument is closed until the manager decides otherwise.
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.
Luka Avaliani 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.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Sioni, another week without a signature from Dachi Tsnobiladze.
“I watch every Sioni game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Kolkheti runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
The manager has re-ordered his thinking and Givi Mukbaniani has come out of it lower. He will be told it is temporary, and the players who have heard that before will avoid his eye.
“I have done everything asked of me in training and it has not changed a thing on a Saturday.” The most familiar complaint in football, and one Sioni will have to answer with minutes or with a transfer.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Sioni know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Vinicius Nunes trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
A manager forgives a bad Saturday far more readily than a bad Tuesday, because one of them he can explain and the other one he chose. The reports this week have not been good.
“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.
Vakhtang Shengelia 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.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Words at Tskhinvali training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Goga Janelidze 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.