Marked for Otar Arveladze
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market25 Jan 2027
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Squad25 Jan 2027
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Tskhinvali this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Market25 Jan 2027
Everyone has stopped pretending: Shukura will make the call about Goga Arveladze this week. Tskhinvali have a number in mind, and the number is not shy.
Squad25 Jan 2027
Words at Tskhinvali training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Irakli Kvaratskhelia 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.
Squad25 Jan 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Otar Arveladze, and the manager let it.
Squad25 Jan 2027
A year in and the language has not come, the city has not opened up, and he eats alone more often than anybody at Tskhinvali would like to admit. It is showing on Saturdays.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad23 Nov 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Goga Kobiashvili
20 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Tskhinvali lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad23 Nov 2026
A fracture rules Jaba Chakvetadze out for 28 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Tskhinvali will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Squad23 Nov 2026
Otar Arveladze: that is not what I was promised
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Tskhinvali have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 38. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad17 Aug 2026
A shoot-out is remembered by its ending, and this one ends with Goga Arveladze: 2 kept out, and a set of supporters who will describe every one of them for the next twenty years.
Match12 Aug 2026
A 0‑0 win over Shukura, a place in the next round, and the quiet arithmetic every supporter does on the walk home: how many more until a final?
Match15 Aug 2026
Ninety minutes of very little, and then everything at once. The winner arrived in the 85th, and Samtredia spent what remained of the match appealing to the referee rather than chasing the ball.
Squad17 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 Tskhinvali this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Market17 Aug 2026
Jaba Zivzivadze has left for Chikhura in a $140.0K deal. The accountants are pleased; the supporters are less certain.
Match15 Aug 2026
Three points for Tskhinvali, 2‑1 the final word against Samtredia in a contest settled by the finer margins.
The terraces17 Aug 2026
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Goga Arveladze 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 ratings17 Aug 2026
Saba Arveladze was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.11. 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.