Marked for Irakli Kobiashvili
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad16 Nov 2026
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 133 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Squad16 Nov 2026
Davit Daraselia: 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.” Saburtalo have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Squad16 Nov 2026
Beka Dartsmelia 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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad19 Oct 2026
43 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Saburtalo lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Beka Dartsmelia 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.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Words at Saburtalo training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Matvey Polivanov 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
Uneasy
Squad14 Sep 2026
82 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Saburtalo lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Market14 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 Saburtalo can pretend not to have heard.
Squad14 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 Saburtalo this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Matvey Polivanov 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.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 18. 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
“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.
Loan watch14 Sep 2026
“I watch every Saburtalo game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Qarabag runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
13 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
Match12 Sep 2026
Ninety minutes, two goalkeepers with clean gloves, and not one finish worth keeping. Lokomotivi will be the happier side with the point.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market7 Sep 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 Shukura, and it is not being withdrawn.
Match5 Sep 2026
7 matches without a win for Shukura
The run now stands at 7, and the questions being asked around Shukura are no longer polite ones.
Match5 Sep 2026
7 matches without a goal for Shukura
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 7 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Guðmann Þórisson 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.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Words at Shukura training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Guga Palavandishvili 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.
Player ratings7 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 17. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Too much change too quickly at Shukura
13 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
Marked 7.30 on an afternoon he ran from the first whistle to the last. Whatever else went wrong, Shukura had the best player on the pitch.
Squad7 Sep 2026
A place in the month's best eleven for Luka Chaganava
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Luka Chaganava has come out of that comparison in the side, and Shukura have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad17 Aug 2026
Luka Nemsadze damages knee ligaments — 28 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 28 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.
Match12 Aug 2026
The small margins put Shukura out
Out, 0‑1 to Tskhinvali, and the long argument about which of the small moments decided it. The league is all there is now, and everybody knows it.
Match15 Aug 2026
4 matches without a win for Shukura
The run now stands at 4, and the questions being asked around Shukura are no longer polite ones.
Match15 Aug 2026
4 matches without a goal for Shukura
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.
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 Shukura this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad17 Aug 2026
“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.
Match15 Aug 2026
Beaten 0‑1, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 18. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad17 Aug 2026
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Market3 Aug 2026
Saburtalo say no — this time
The offer from Sapovnela for Irakli Kobiashvili 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.
Player ratings3 Aug 2026
Sandro Janelidze ran the middle of the pitch — 6.58
He won it back and then made something of it, which is two jobs and the reason the scoreline looks the way it does. 15 combined actions and a mark of 6.58, and not one of them will make a highlights package.
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 Saburtalo this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Market3 Aug 2026
The name of Revaz Mikautadze has come up in conversations Saburtalo were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Words at Saburtalo training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Matvey Polivanov 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.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Temur Kashia gets it from the manager
“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.
Match1 Aug 2026
0‑1 to Kolkheti, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Squad3 Aug 2026
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Kakha Gvelesiani commits to Saburtalo for another 1 years.
Market3 Aug 2026
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Nika Gvelesiani has his answer from Saburtalo; what he does with it is the next window’s story.