Marked for Nika Mikautadze
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad25 Jan 2027
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 18 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Market25 Jan 2027
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Squad25 Jan 2027
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.
Squad25 Jan 2027
15 days, the medical staff say, and medical staff are optimists by profession. The team sheet will look wrong without him.
Market25 Jan 2027
Add another name to the list: Kolkheti have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Temur Kakabadze. The answer from Saburtalo has not changed — yet.
Market25 Jan 2027
Nika Mikautadze has left for Shukura in a $11.0K deal. The accountants are pleased; the supporters are less certain.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market25 Jan 2027
$640.0K — a new record at Shukura
No footballer has ever cost this club more, and the number will be read out every time he misplaces a pass for the next two years.
Market25 Jan 2027
“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.
Squad25 Jan 2027
72 days, the medical staff say, and medical staff are optimists by profession. The team sheet will look wrong without him.
Squad25 Jan 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 Shukura this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The terraces25 Jan 2027
Shukura spend $640.0K on the signing the town wanted
It is the rarest sequence in football: supporters ask for something, and the club goes and does it. $640.0K for Saba Ananidze, and for one week nobody is complaining about anything.
Squad25 Jan 2027
Words at Shukura training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Rezo Meskhidze 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
Boardroom30 Nov 2026
They will talk about this season in this town for a long time. The trophy comes home with the squad, and the route is already agreed.
Squad30 Nov 2026
72 days, the medical staff say, and medical staff are optimists by profession. The team sheet will look wrong without him.
Squad30 Nov 2026
Arseny Rodionov 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
Upbeat
Market9 Nov 2026
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Saburtalo they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
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 Saburtalo this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad9 Nov 2026
“The easiest signature of my career.” Vakhtang Janelidze and Saburtalo agree another 3 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
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.
Loan watch19 Oct 2026
“I watch every Saburtalo game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Samtredia runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Nika Mikautadze 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.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 36. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad28 Sep 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Guram Mikautadze
34 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.
Match28 Sep 2026
19 points on the board and a place in the leading group. Nobody at the ground is saying the word out loud yet.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
Two goals and a mark of 8.13 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Squad28 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.
The terraces28 Sep 2026
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 20-year-old it feels ownership of. Tornike Arveladze has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
Squad28 Sep 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Tornike Arveladze, and the manager let it.
Loan watch28 Sep 2026
“I did not go to Chikhura to sit and watch. I want to come back to Saburtalo and fight for my place.” 0 appearances in 7 matches say the rest.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
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 Saburtalo can pretend not to have heard.
Market7 Sep 2026
Saburtalo say no — this time
The offer from Shukura for Bachana Mchedlidze 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.
Match5 Sep 2026
Saburtalo make it 3 in a row
Momentum is a hard thing to buy and an easy thing to lose, and right now Saburtalo have 3 straight wins of it.
Player ratings7 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 22. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Market7 Sep 2026
Otar Mikautadze has left for Lokomotivi in a $280.0K deal. The accountants are pleased; the supporters are less certain.
The terraces7 Sep 2026
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Lasha Kiteishvili has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
Match5 Sep 2026
A 2‑0 win over Sioni, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Player ratings7 Sep 2026
A performance of 8.64 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Player ratings7 Sep 2026
Lasha Kiteishvili was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.04. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.