Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Dimas has just signed for Zugdidi, and for once the answer mattered.
“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.
Zugdidi asked and Shakhtar said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
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.
Frank Chileshe 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 not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Zugdidi are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Beka Gamsakhurdia trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Zugdidi close the window on a squad of their own making
4 in and 3 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.
The chase for Frank Chileshe ended with $170.0K changing hands and Lokomotivi out of reasons to say no. The supporters will judge the fee the only way that matters: on Saturdays.
Zugdidi asked and Livyi Bereh said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Zugdidi this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Signings arrive with a picture of the club in their head, and this one’s picture was bigger than the building. He will play well and he will be gone, in that order, and everybody knows it.
Squad1 Feb 2027
Temur Lomadze 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.
6 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Zugdidi will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Zugdidi this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad14 Dec 2026
Words at Zugdidi training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Shota Qazaishvili 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 list is a quiet document with a loud meaning. Stanislav Dmitriev may talk to anybody who asks, and everybody at the club understands what that means.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Zugdidi, and both men came out saying it was fine.
16 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Zugdidi lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Zugdidi will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Mikheil Kvaratskhelia 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.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 9 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
“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 dugout19 Oct 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Tornike Kakabadze was not hiding it after 1‑1, and nobody in the Zugdidi dressing room was either.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Words at Zugdidi training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Giorgi Qazaishvili 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.
He wheeled away like a man who had been carrying it for months, because he had. Zugdidi have their signing off the mark and one press-conference question retired.
6 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
Marked 8.00 — 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.
Minute 92, against Sioni, and a goal that felt like a win to everybody who had stayed. It was a draw. Nobody leaving the ground will describe it as one.
Guram Tsitaishvili 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 Shota Qazaishvili was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.