Marked for Kakha Tsitaishvili
From our football correspondent
Steady
The dugout16 Nov 2026
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Tskhinvali have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Squad16 Nov 2026
Vakhtang Shengelia and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad16 Nov 2026
A row about effort at Tskhinvali
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Pedro Romano was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Loan watch16 Nov 2026
“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 3 appearances in 11 say he has earned the hearing.
The dugout16 Nov 2026
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.
Market16 Nov 2026
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Marcos Pedro’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
The dugout2 Nov 2026
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Squad2 Nov 2026
Words exchanged at Shukura
Giorgi Kavtaradze 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 dugout2 Nov 2026
The manager makes an example of Luka Katamadze
“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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad12 Oct 2026
At 35, 3 points below where he was, and a body that has started charging interest. It happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph on this page.
Squad12 Oct 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.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Lasha Lobjanidze and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Loan watch12 Oct 2026
“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 2 appearances in 6 say he has earned the hearing.
Squad12 Oct 2026
5 new faces, and Tskhinvali are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
Market12 Oct 2026
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Nika Tsitaishvili has his answer from Tskhinvali; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
The dugout12 Oct 2026
Dário Júnior has become a man the manager trusts
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.
Market12 Oct 2026
The name of Goga Janelidze keeps appearing in other people's back pages. Tskhinvali say nothing, which says plenty.
The dugout12 Oct 2026
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Nika Tsitaishvili trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Transfer targets24 Aug 2026
Shukura and Sioni have settled on $110.0K. 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.
Squad24 Aug 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Shukura this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Transfer targets24 Aug 2026
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Dinamo Tbilisi have kept their man, and Shukura go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Match22 Aug 2026
Luka Nemsadze scored, and precious little else went right: 1‑2 to Chikhura, and a quiet walk to the dressing room.
The dugout24 Aug 2026
“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 dugout24 Aug 2026
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 1‑2 Goga Kvilitaia left the room before anybody could ask which.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Words at Shukura training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Luka Gegeshidze 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 targets24 Aug 2026
Shukura have made the call to Tskhinvali. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
Market24 Aug 2026
Luka Gegeshidze is 19, and Shukura have signed him for the player he will be rather than the one he is. The first team can wait; the point of a deal like this is the years it buys.