Marked for Aleksandre Lobjanidze
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad15 Feb 2027
Nika Kobiashvili damages knee ligaments — 66 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 66 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Market15 Feb 2027
Veres pay $2.2M, and the deal is done. The number reads well on a balance sheet; whether it reads well on the pitch is next season's question.
Market15 Feb 2027
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Zugdidi, and it is not being withdrawn.
Market15 Feb 2027
Saba Kvilitaia has one foot out of the door
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Zugdidi they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad15 Feb 2027
Mikheil Mchedlidze 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.
Squad15 Feb 2027
“The easiest signature of my career.” Tornike Janelidze and Zugdidi agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad4 Jan 2027
A knee injury of the worst kind for Nika Kobiashvili
109 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Zugdidi lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad4 Jan 2027
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 38 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Market4 Jan 2027
Zugdidi say no — this time
The offer from Kolkheti for Goga Tsitaishvili 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.
Market4 Jan 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.
Market4 Jan 2027
The name of Goga Kobiashvili has come up in conversations Zugdidi were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Squad4 Jan 2027
Mikheil Mchedlidze 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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad28 Dec 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Nika Kobiashvili
116 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Zugdidi lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad28 Dec 2026
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 45 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Market28 Dec 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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad30 Nov 2026
Nika Kobiashvili damages knee ligaments — 145 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 145 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Squad30 Nov 2026
A fracture rules Lasha Shengelia out for 74 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Zugdidi will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Market30 Nov 2026
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Zugdidi can pretend not to have heard.
In brief
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Squad
Tempers go at Zugdidi
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Squad
Words at Zugdidi training over how hard people work
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad2 Nov 2026
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 103 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Market2 Nov 2026
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Zugdidi can pretend not to have heard.
Squad2 Nov 2026
Words at Zugdidi training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Goga Kobiashvili 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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad19 Oct 2026
A fracture rules Lasha Shengelia out for 120 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Zugdidi will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Mamuka Zivzivadze is 20, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Goga Kobiashvili 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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
A brace, and Goga Kobiashvili takes the afternoon — 8.72
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Goga Kobiashvili provided it, and the 8.72 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Goga Kobiashvili 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.
Match19 Sep 2026
Goga Kobiashvili scored, and precious little else went right: 2‑3 to Sioni, and a quiet walk to the dressing room.
Loan watch21 Sep 2026
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Zugdidi, and 0 appearances in 6 say he has earned the hearing.
Squad21 Sep 2026
One weekend, judged against everybody else's. Goga Tsitaishvili has come out on top of it, and for most footballers a weekly award is the only silverware a career ever produces.
Squad21 Sep 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Archil Kobiashvili, and the manager let it.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Every debut is a small story about the future: Lasha Mikautadze, 17 years old, off the academy pitches and into the first team. The parents in the stand will keep the programme.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
Chances created: 5. Somebody has to open a door before anybody can walk through it, and he spent the afternoon opening doors.
Market21 Sep 2026
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Tornike Janelidze signs something — a contract at Zugdidi or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Squad10 Aug 2026
The match ball belongs to Goga Kobiashvili, whose 6 goals turned a difficult afternoon into a procession.
Match8 Aug 2026
7‑3, and the margin flattered nobody — it could have carried another goal or two without complaint. Afternoons like this are why people keep coming.
Player ratings10 Aug 2026
Beka Kiteishvili, 16, plays like he has been here for years — 9.70
A mark of 9.70 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 16-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Market10 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.
Squad10 Aug 2026
“The easiest signature of my career.” Goga Kobiashvili and Zugdidi agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Player ratings10 Aug 2026
Goga Kobiashvili was on a different afternoon to everybody else
9.99. 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.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Bachana Kashia 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.
Match8 Aug 2026
10 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Zugdidi and Shukura in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
Player ratings10 Aug 2026
A touch he did not want, a bounce he could not have read, and his name in the wrong column. There is no consoling a man after one of these, and Zugdidi will not try tonight.