Marked for Guram Kvilitaia
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Market5 Jul 2027
$45.0K from Zugdidi for Guram Kvilitaia. Money is money, but the dressing room has lost the man it looked to.
Match3 Jul 2027
The wait goes on for Tskhinvali
10 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
Market5 Jul 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 The request is on a desk at Tskhinvali, and it is not being withdrawn.
Market5 Jul 2027
Merani come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Tskhinvali did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Market5 Jul 2027
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Mamuka Kiteishvili will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Tskhinvali the goodbyes have quietly begun.
The terraces5 Jul 2027
Tskhinvali sell a favourite for $45.0K
The accountants will call it good business and they will be right, which is not the point anybody outside the boardroom is making. Guram Kvilitaia was one of the reasons people came, and $45.0K does not replace that by itself.
Player ratings5 Jul 2027
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.
Squad5 Jul 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.
Squad5 Jul 2027
Aleksandre 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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Player ratings5 Jul 2027
Successful dribbles: 40. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Match3 Jul 2027
0‑8 to Saburtalo, and it was every bit as bad as the number suggests. There are defeats you argue about and defeats you apologise for; this was the second kind.
Squad5 Jul 2027
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 8 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Match3 Jul 2027
4 matches without a win for Zugdidi
The run now stands at 4, and the questions being asked around Zugdidi are no longer polite ones.
Squad5 Jul 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 Zugdidi this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Market5 Jul 2027
The fee is $45.0K, the contract is signed, and the argument about whether he is worth it can begin. Tskhinvali drove a hard bargain; time will say who won it.
Match3 Jul 2027
Nobody could stop scoring
8 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Zugdidi and Saburtalo in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
Market5 Jul 2027
The name of Aleksandre Gamsakhurdia has come up in conversations Zugdidi were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Squad5 Jul 2027
Kakha Daraselia 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.
In brief
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Squad
No hiding place for Beka Ananidze
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Boardroom
Nobody left the Zugdidi dressing room in a hurry
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Boardroom
Intake day at the Zugdidi academy
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market8 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 Tskhinvali, and it is not being withdrawn.
Market8 Feb 2027
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Squad8 Feb 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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market12 Oct 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 Tskhinvali can pretend not to have heard.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Jaba Ananidze 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.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Words at Tskhinvali training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Mamuka Kiteishvili 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
Crisis
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 35. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Match19 Aug 2026
Dinamo Batumi go through and Tskhinvali go home, 0‑3 the scoreline that did it. The dressing room will call the league the priority now, because that is what dressing rooms say.
The terraces24 Aug 2026
0-3, and long before the end the away end had switched from encouragement to something considerably more pointed. Nobody rings a phone-in about losing narrowly.
Market24 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.
Market24 Aug 2026
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Squad24 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.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Aleksandre 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.
Squad24 Aug 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Reinaldo López, and the manager let it.
Match22 Aug 2026
Sioni left with the points after a 0‑1 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
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 Tskhinvali this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad3 Aug 2026
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Mikheil Mchedlidze and Tskhinvali agree another 2 years.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Aleksandre 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.
Match1 Aug 2026
Beaten 0‑2, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Market3 Aug 2026
The name of Dato Kvilitaia has come up in conversations Tskhinvali were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Squad3 Aug 2026
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.