Marked for Sandro Kvaratskhelia
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
The terraces12 Feb 2029
Anger at Shukura spills outside the ground
It has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
Boardroom12 Feb 2029
Pressure builds in the Shukura boardroom
The directors have stopped offering the manager public warmth. In football that is usually the stage before the short statement.
Squad12 Feb 2029
Aydın Bağ in a row with a teammate
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.
Squad12 Feb 2029
26 days, the scan says, and scans are kinder than reality. The fixtures in that window have just become somebody else’s job.
Squad12 Feb 2029
Words at Shukura training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Guga Palavandishvili 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.
Squad12 Feb 2029
“The easiest signature of my career.” Sandro Kvaratskhelia and Shukura agree another 3 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
The terraces18 Dec 2028
Anger at Shukura spills outside the ground
It has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
Boardroom18 Dec 2028
Pressure builds in the Shukura boardroom
The directors have stopped offering the manager public warmth. In football that is usually the stage before the short statement.
Squad18 Dec 2028
Aydın Bağ in a row with a teammate
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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
The terraces12 Jun 2028
Supporters turn on the $750.0K sale of Piruz Gabitashvili
He is going to Dila, the club has $750.0K it did not have on Friday, and the phone-ins have already decided how they feel about that. Selling well and selling somebody they loved are not the same skill.
Market12 Jun 2028
Piruz Gabitashvili has left for Dila in a $750.0K deal. The accountants are pleased; the supporters are less certain.
Squad12 Jun 2028
Aydın Bağ in a row with a teammate
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.
Squad12 Jun 2028
Words at Shukura training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Guga Palavandishvili 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.
Match10 Jun 2028
It finished 1‑0, and it was Revaz Kashia’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Shukura.
Squad12 Jun 2028
The manager makes an example of Luka Nemsadze
“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.
Player ratings12 Jun 2028
Successful dribbles: 16. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Player ratings12 Jun 2028
Marked 7.91. Ask anyone leaving the ground what settled it and you will get one name, which is the only award that has ever really counted.
Player ratings12 Jun 2028
16 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad30 Aug 2027
27 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Kolkheti lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Market30 Aug 2027
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Match28 Aug 2027
6 matches without a win for Kolkheti
The run now stands at 6, and the questions being asked around Kolkheti are no longer polite ones.
Squad30 Aug 2027
“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.
Squad30 Aug 2027
Jan Kvída 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.
Squad30 Aug 2027
Nery Veloso 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.
Match28 Aug 2027
Beaten 0‑2, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Player ratings30 Aug 2027
Successful dribbles: 11. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Market30 Aug 2027
Contract settled, hands shaken, no fee changing hands. Avtandil Mikautadze leaves Kolkheti the quiet way, and the wage bill breathes a little easier.