Marked for Bachana Zivzivadze
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad22 Feb 2027
A knee injury of the worst kind for Archil Kvilitaia
29 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.
Match20 Feb 2027
Tskhinvali come up short in Europe
0‑1 away to the standard of Molde. Nobody will pretend this was a scandal; the gap is real, it is measurable, and closing it is a project rather than a team talk.
Squad22 Feb 2027
“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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad28 Dec 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.
Squad28 Dec 2026
44 days, the scan says, and scans are kinder than reality. The fixtures in that window have just become somebody else’s job.
Squad28 Dec 2026
Shota Kvilitaia 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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match26 Sep 2026
No end in sight to Tskhinvali's wait for a win
7 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Tskhinvali has to find a result from somewhere.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 24. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Per-Egil Flo 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.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Words at Tskhinvali training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Santiago Mera 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.
The terraces28 Sep 2026
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Archil Kvilitaia 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 ratings28 Sep 2026
Shota Kvilitaia was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.29. 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.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
Marked 8.18 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Squad28 Sep 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Tornike Tsitaishvili, and the manager let it.
Squad28 Sep 2026
7 new faces, and Tskhinvali are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad7 Sep 2026
A fracture rules Lasha Chaladze out for 50 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Merani will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Market7 Sep 2026
Only the photograph left for Davit Khelaia
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Davit Khelaia will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Merani the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Match5 Sep 2026
4 matches without a win for Merani
The run now stands at 4, and the questions being asked around Merani are no longer polite ones.
Match5 Sep 2026
4 matches without a goal for Merani
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 4 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Zviad Sikharulia 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.
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 Merani this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Too much change too quickly at Merani
5 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
Player ratings7 Sep 2026
A mark of 7.20, and nobody in the ground would argue with it. He was involved in everything that mattered and most of what did not.
Player ratings7 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 14. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 42. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 58 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Market31 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.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Nodar Kavtaradze 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.
Match29 Aug 2026
3 matches without a goal for Merani
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 3 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
Match29 Aug 2026
Beaten 0‑2, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Squad31 Aug 2026
The manager makes an example of Renat Gagity
“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.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Tempers go at Merani
Bachana Zivzivadze 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.
Market31 Aug 2026
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Nodar Kavtaradze’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.