The Zugdidi Chronicle
Squad8 Feb 2027
Dimas gets the move he always wanted
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.
Market8 Feb 2027
Davit Kvilitaia turns Chikhura down
“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.
Transfer targets8 Feb 2027
Door shut on Gleiker Mendoza
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.
Squad8 Feb 2027
Dimas 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.
Squad8 Feb 2027
Tempers go at Zugdidi
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.
Squad8 Feb 2027
No place for Dimas in the new shape
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.
Market8 Feb 2027
Talks stall between Zugdidi and João Varanda
“We are a long way apart, and pretending otherwise helps nobody.” Neither side is close, and the calendar is not on the club's side.
Market8 Feb 2027
Mikheil Kvaratskhelia linked with a move away
The name of Mikheil Kvaratskhelia keeps appearing in other people's back pages. Zugdidi say nothing, which says plenty.
The dugout8 Feb 2027
Beka Gamsakhurdia knocks on the manager’s door
“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.
In brief
- Market Mamuka Daraselia leaves for nothing
- The dugout The manager plants his flag on Jacopo Piras