Marked for Vakhtang Mchedlidze
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad9 Nov 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.
Squad9 Nov 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.
Squad9 Nov 2026
The message was aimed at the stands as much as the dressing room: Nedeljko Stojišić plays, and the argument is closed until the manager decides otherwise.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad2 Nov 2026
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Squad2 Nov 2026
Aydın Bağ in a row with a teammate
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.
Squad2 Nov 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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market2 Nov 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 The request is on a desk at Zugdidi, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad2 Nov 2026
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 48 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Squad2 Nov 2026
Jerry Orozco in a row with a teammate
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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
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.
Match29 Aug 2026
The wait goes on for Shukura
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.
Match29 Aug 2026
The goals have deserted Shukura
6 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Shukura can tell you which week it ends in.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Aydın Bağ 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.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Guga Palavandishvili 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.
Squad31 Aug 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Gogita Salukvadze, and the manager let it.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
18 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.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
7.58, and no serious argument from anybody who was there. Shukura had eleven men on the pitch and one of them decided how it went.
Squad31 Aug 2026
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad31 Aug 2026
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Zugdidi will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
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
Jerry Orozco 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.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Irakli Chakvetadze 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.
Squad31 Aug 2026
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Irakli Chakvetadze commits to Zugdidi for another 3 years.
Market31 Aug 2026
Both sides expect a conversation in the coming days. Zugdidi will name a price, and everything after that is arithmetic.