Marked for Bachana Kvaratskhelia
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad5 Oct 2026
Nika Ananidze damages knee ligaments — 69 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 69 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.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 40 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Squad5 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 Saburtalo this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 43. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Nika Ananidze damages knee ligaments — 76 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 76 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.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 47 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Khvicha Shengelia 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.
Match26 Sep 2026
Whatever happens, Saburtalo do not lose
6 games unbeaten now. Some were earned and some were survived, but a habit is forming — and habits are the hardest thing in football to play against.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Words at Saburtalo training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jemal Tabidze 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 terraces28 Sep 2026
At 22 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.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
A performance of 8.08 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 46. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad21 Sep 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Nika Ananidze
84 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.
Squad21 Sep 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.
Squad21 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.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Jemal Tabidze 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.
Match19 Sep 2026
Saburtalo hit back inside 3 minutes
Tskhinvali held the lead for 3 minutes, which is not long enough to enjoy it. Saburtalo answered before the celebration had properly finished, and the shape of the afternoon changed with it.
Match19 Sep 2026
It needed Mikheil Shengelia to find the net to bring anything home at all: 1‑1 against Tskhinvali, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
Market21 Sep 2026
Saburtalo have let the market know Saba Arveladze can be had. No price in the advert, but everyone in the trade knows roughly what it says.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
The pass was always on for Junior Brítez
Chances created: 4. Somebody has to open a door before anybody can walk through it, and he spent the afternoon opening doors.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad14 Sep 2026
Nika Ananidze damages knee ligaments — 92 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 92 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.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Saburtalo will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 25. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Words at Saburtalo training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Cleiderman Osorio 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.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Hermes Palomino 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.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.10, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Loan watch14 Sep 2026
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Saburtalo, and 0 appearances in 5 say he has earned the hearing.
Match12 Sep 2026
A 1‑1 draw with Lokomotivi leaves the dressing room somewhere between relief and regret.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
He was not in the side at half past three and he had settled it before five. Half an hour, and Saburtalo had a different afternoon.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Player ratings7 Sep 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.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Nika Ananidze damages knee ligaments — 99 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 99 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.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 70 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Player ratings7 Sep 2026
A brace, and Guram Lobjanidze takes the afternoon — 8.35
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Guram Lobjanidze provided it, and the 8.35 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Market7 Sep 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.
Squad7 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.
Match5 Sep 2026
It finished 3‑2, and it was Guram Lobjanidze’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Saburtalo.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Jemal Tabidze 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 ratings7 Sep 2026
Marked 8.40 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 64. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 77 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Nika Ananidze damages knee ligaments — 106 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 106 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.
Market31 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.
Market31 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 Saburtalo can pretend not to have heard.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Jemal Tabidze 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
Words at Saburtalo training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Cleiderman Osorio 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 ratings31 Aug 2026
7.91, and no serious argument from anybody who was there. Saburtalo had eleven men on the pitch and one of them decided how it went.
Match29 Aug 2026
It finished 1‑1, and it somehow always looked like it would. One of those afternoons where the table moves less than the tempers.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad24 Aug 2026
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 84 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Match22 Aug 2026
Rarely has this fixture seen a display like it: 8‑1 against Sapovnela, and it could have been more.
Match19 Aug 2026
The cup run ends for Saburtalo
0‑1 against Dila, and the road stops here. Cup exits are quick deaths — no second leg, no next week, just the league from now until May.
Squad24 Aug 2026
3 goals in one game. The first was taken well, the second was taken greedily, and by the third the crowd were simply waiting for him to get the ball.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Two goals and a mark of 8.12 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
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 Saburtalo can pretend not to have heard.
Market24 Aug 2026
Samtredia come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Saburtalo did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
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 Saburtalo this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match22 Aug 2026
9 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Saburtalo and Sapovnela in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 74. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 93 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Match12 Aug 2026
Cup ties wait for somebody to seize them, and Mikheil Shengelia obliged against Guria. 1‑0 on the night, and the name in the next round’s hat is Saburtalo.
Match12 Aug 2026
Mikheil Shengelia wins it after the whistle should have gone
96 minutes played. Mikheil Shengelia found the finish in time that only existed because of earlier delays, and Guria went from a point to nothing inside one movement.
Market17 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.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Jemal Tabidze 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.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Junior Brítez 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.
The terraces17 Aug 2026
At 22 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.
Match15 Aug 2026
0‑1 to Torpedo Kutaisi, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad10 Aug 2026
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Saburtalo will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Squad10 Aug 2026
A move Jemal Tabidze would have made for nothing
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Jemal Tabidze is living that version at Saburtalo, and it tends to show in the first month.
Squad10 Aug 2026
“The easiest signature of my career.” Aleksandre Chakvetadze and Saburtalo agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Market10 Aug 2026
Shukura come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Saburtalo did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Jemal Tabidze 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.
Market10 Aug 2026
The name of Shota Kashia has come up in conversations Saburtalo were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Match8 Aug 2026
Beaten 0‑1, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Player ratings10 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 17. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Market10 Aug 2026
Sioni are about to pick up the phone
A conversation is coming this week. Saburtalo will put a number on him, and from there it stops being football and becomes arithmetic.