Marked for Bachana Gamsakhurdia
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad12 Oct 2026
3 goals in one afternoon from one man. The other players were also present, a witness confirmed.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Tempers go at Volna
Dmitry Rebrov 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.
Match10 Oct 2026
Three points for Volna, 3‑1 the final word against Nosta in a contest settled by the finer margins.
Player ratings12 Oct 2026
Gocha Gogrichiani was on a different afternoon to everybody else
9.17. 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.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Shahin Shojaei 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 terraces12 Oct 2026
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Mikhail Zabotkin 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.
Player ratings12 Oct 2026
Successful dribbles: 16. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Market12 Oct 2026
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Volna know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Match12 Sep 2026
No mercy from Volna
Akron 2 will want this one forgotten quickly: 6‑2, every duel lost, and a long ride home. Volna were ruthless in the way good sides are ruthless.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 8.38, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 8.02, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Tempers go at Volna
Dmitry Rebrov 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.
Match12 Sep 2026
8 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Volna and Akron 2 in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Bachana Gamsakhurdia has just signed for Volna, and for once the answer mattered.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Mikhail Zabotkin 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 terraces14 Sep 2026
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Mikhail Zabotkin 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.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
Ninety minutes of Mikhail Zabotkin at his very best
Marked 8.18. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Volna.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad17 Aug 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Aleksandar Pantić
114 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Saburtalo lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Match12 Aug 2026
Saburtalo through in the cup
A 2‑1 win over Guria, and the draw for the next round can be watched with some interest for once.
Market17 Aug 2026
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Volkan Yazici, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 7.61
A mark of 7.61 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
One scored and one made, which is a different afternoon from scoring twice and an easier one to overlook. Marked 7.72, and involved in 2 of his side's goals.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Beka Kakabadze 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.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Words at Saburtalo training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Temur Mchedlidze 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.
Match15 Aug 2026
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Shota Ananidze. 2‑1 against Torpedo Kutaisi, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
The terraces17 Aug 2026
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.