Marked for Aleksandre Lobjanidze
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market7 Sep 2026
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
Window shuts: 2 in, 7 out at Zugdidi
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 2 arrived, 7 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Every paper's favourite story and every manager's least. What happened is being dealt with internally, which is the phrase clubs use when they would rather nobody asked again.
Transfer targets7 Sep 2026
Zugdidi asked and Ferro Carril Oeste said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Tempers went at Zugdidi this week. Nothing a hard session and a quiet word cannot repair, though the story got out all the same.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Vakhtang Shengelia is the division's best young player this month
At 17 he has spent a month being better than everybody his age in the league, which is a different and harder thing than one good afternoon. Zugdidi will try very hard not to make too much of it.
Squad7 Sep 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 Zugdidi this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Market7 Sep 2026
Zugdidi have let the market know Aleksandre Lobjanidze can be had. No price in the advert, but everyone in the trade knows roughly what it says.
The terraces7 Sep 2026
What was a back-page link has become a chant, and the chant is not friendly. Zugdidi would rather it were settled quietly, and it has stopped being quiet.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad17 Aug 2026
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 13 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Squad17 Aug 2026
5 goals in one game. The first was taken well, the second was taken greedily, and by the third the crowd were simply waiting for him to get the ball.
Match15 Aug 2026
Shukura will want this one forgotten quickly: 10‑1, every duel lost, and a long ride home. Zugdidi were ruthless in the way good sides are ruthless.
Match12 Aug 2026
Zugdidi out of the cup
Torpedo Kutaisi ended it 0‑3. The season narrows to the league now, and everyone in the ground knew it before the final whistle.
Market17 Aug 2026
Zugdidi say no — this time
The offer from Dinamo Batumi for Jaba Lobjanidze was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Squad17 Aug 2026
3 goals in one afternoon from one man. The other players were also present, a witness confirmed.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Aleksandre Lobjanidze provided it, and the 8.34 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
The terraces17 Aug 2026
Zugdidi are taken apart by Torpedo Kutaisi — and the town wants answers
It finished 0-3. A cup exit is a disappointment; this was a public dismantling, and the difference between the two is the number of people who will still be talking about it in August.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 26. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market10 Aug 2026
Zugdidi say no — this time
The offer from Sapovnela for Aleksandre Lobjanidze was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Player ratings10 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 25. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Transfer targets10 Aug 2026
The deal with Tskhinvali is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
Squad10 Aug 2026
“The easiest signature of my career.” Guram Chakvetadze and Zugdidi agree another 3 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad10 Aug 2026
A falling-out at Zugdidi
Aleksandre Lobjanidze and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Transfer targets10 Aug 2026
Zugdidi asked and Dinamo Batumi said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Squad10 Aug 2026
A row about effort at Zugdidi
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Giorgi Mikautadze was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout10 Aug 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Giorgi Mikautadze, and the manager let it.
Match8 Aug 2026
A bad afternoon for Zugdidi against Guria
0‑1 to Guria, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Match1 Aug 2026
6‑1, and Guram Chakvetadze took the headlines on an afternoon when everything Zugdidi tried came off. Days like this are retold all winter.
Squad3 Aug 2026
The match ball belongs to Guram Chakvetadze, whose 3 goals turned a difficult afternoon into a procession.
Player ratings3 Aug 2026
Vakhtang Shengelia could not have asked for more on his first appearance — 7.94
Debuts are survived rather than enjoyed. This one was enjoyed: 7.94, 0 goals, and a manager already being asked whether he starts again next week.
Player ratings3 Aug 2026
Saba Gvelesiani, 20, plays like he has been here for years — 8.03
A mark of 8.03 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 20-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Market3 Aug 2026
“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.
Squad3 Aug 2026
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Zurab Mikautadze and Zugdidi agree another 2 years.
Squad3 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 Zugdidi this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Transfer targets3 Aug 2026
Zugdidi asked and Torpedo Kutaisi said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.