Marked for Sandro Gamsakhurdia
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 33. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 22 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Match12 Sep 2026
The wait goes on for Tskhinvali
6 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.
Loan watch14 Sep 2026
“I watch every Tskhinvali game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Sumgayit runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
Squad14 Sep 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Shota Janelidze, and the manager let it.
Match12 Sep 2026
The crowd waited for a goal that never came. Dinamo Tbilisi defended in numbers and left with what they came for, and the two sides could be playing still without troubling a scorer.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad7 Sep 2026
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 29 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Match5 Sep 2026
5 matches without a win for Tskhinvali
The run now stands at 5, and the questions being asked around Tskhinvali are no longer polite ones.
Market7 Sep 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.
Market7 Sep 2026
The offer from Lokomotivi for Sandro Gamsakhurdia 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.
Market7 Sep 2026
Merani pay $72.0K, 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.
Player ratings7 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 20. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad7 Sep 2026
A place in the month's best eleven for Lasha Ananidze
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Lasha Ananidze has come out of that comparison in the side, and Tskhinvali have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
Match5 Sep 2026
It needed Mamuka Kvaratskhelia to find the net to bring anything home at all: 1‑1 against Dila, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
Market7 Sep 2026
Both sides expect a conversation in the coming days. Tskhinvali will name a price, and everything after that is arithmetic.
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 ended it 0‑1. The season narrows to the league now, and everyone in the ground knew it before the final whistle.
Squad24 Aug 2026
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.
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
There were 6 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Market24 Aug 2026
“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.
Match22 Aug 2026
3 matches without a goal for Tskhinvali
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.
Match22 Aug 2026
Sioni left with the points after a 0‑1 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Words at Tskhinvali training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jaba Gvelesiani 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
Upbeat
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 47. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Match12 Aug 2026
A 1‑0 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?
Squad17 Aug 2026
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 54 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
No sign of nerves from Revaz Ananidze at 17 — 8.16
The hardest thing about being 17 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Revaz Ananidze did not need any: 8.16, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Market17 Aug 2026
The name of Bachana Kobiashvili has come up in conversations Tskhinvali were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
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.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Words at Tskhinvali training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Otar Ananidze 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 terraces17 Aug 2026
At 17 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
Squad17 Aug 2026
The manager makes an example of Lasha Ananidze
“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.