“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.
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.
The words a physio says slowly. 130 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.
Shota Gvelesiani 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.
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.
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.
“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 The request is on a desk at Zugdidi, and it is not being withdrawn.
A mark of 7.75 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 19-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
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.
Shota Gvelesiani 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.
The phone has started ringing about Zurab Kiteishvili again, and this time the name on the line is Sapovnela. Zugdidi are listening politely and promising nothing.
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.
Shota Gvelesiani 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.
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.
A year in and the language has not come, the city has not opened up, and he eats alone more often than anybody at Zugdidi would like to admit. It is showing on Saturdays.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Zugdidi have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
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.
Jaba Chakvetadze 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.
19 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.
“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 Zugdidi, and 2 appearances in 6 say he has earned the hearing.
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.
Ninety minutes, no goals, and the argument started before the car park emptied: a point gained, or two thrown away against Lokomotivi? Both sides of it will still be going on Thursday.
A mark of 7.69 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 18-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Words at Zugdidi training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jaba Chakvetadze 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.
At 18 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Zurab Kiteishvili. 1‑0 against Samtredia, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
“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 Zugdidi, and 0 appearances in 5 say he has earned the hearing.
Nobody at Zugdidi is suggesting he is out of form. The manager simply wanted somebody with a different set of qualities for ninety specific minutes, and there is nothing a player can train to fix that.
“I respect the manager and I am not going to sit here and pretend I am happy.” It is the most common sentence in football and it has never once been the end of a story.