Marked for Zurab Kiteishvili
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad14 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 Zugdidi this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad14 Dec 2026
17 days, the medical staff say, and medical staff are optimists by profession. The team sheet will look wrong without him.
Squad14 Dec 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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad16 Nov 2026
Zurab Kiteishvili damages knee ligaments — 20 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 20 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.
Squad16 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 Zugdidi this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad16 Nov 2026
Words at Zugdidi training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Levan Gamsakhurdia 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
Squad9 Nov 2026
Zurab Kiteishvili damages knee ligaments — 27 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 27 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.
Squad9 Nov 2026
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Khvicha Qazaishvili and Zugdidi agree another 3 years.
Squad9 Nov 2026
Kakha Daraselia 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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad2 Nov 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Zurab Kiteishvili
35 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Zugdidi lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad2 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 Zugdidi this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad2 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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad26 Oct 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Zurab Kiteishvili
42 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Zugdidi lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Market26 Oct 2026
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Zugdidi is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Boardroom26 Oct 2026
He will play here until the summer and then walk out of the door for free, having already signed elsewhere. Supporters will manage the first part of that sentence; it is the second they will struggle with.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad19 Oct 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Zurab Kiteishvili
49 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Zugdidi lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad19 Oct 2026
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Zugdidi may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Squad19 Oct 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 Zugdidi this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad12 Oct 2026
Zurab Kiteishvili damages knee ligaments — 57 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 57 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.
Squad12 Oct 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.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Kakha Daraselia 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.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
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.
Market24 Aug 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 Zugdidi can pretend not to have heard.
Market24 Aug 2026
The interest is real enough to have reached print. Zugdidi have said nothing, which in a transfer window is its own kind of answer.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Fatih Akgun pulls a muscle — 15 days out
The injury that keeps coming back, keeps being rushed back from, and quietly costs more careers than the dramatic ones. 15 days is the estimate; the honest figure depends on whether anybody is patient.
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 Zugdidi this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match22 Aug 2026
0‑1 to Dinamo Batumi, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.