A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Lokomotivi will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 6 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
$360.0K on the table at Samtredia. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Lokomotivi are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Luka Khelashvili is 20, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Lokomotivi offered $5.0K; Dinamo Tbilisi said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
Lokomotivi asked and Samtredia said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Eric Barrios and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Squad22 Feb 2027
Words at Samtredia training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Giorgi Kveladze 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.
“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 Samtredia, and 0 appearances in 5 say he has earned the hearing.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Davit Samurkasovi signs something — a contract at Samtredia or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Samtredia, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Samtredia. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
Words at Lokomotivi training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Marcos Pedro 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.
Lokomotivi asked and Fenix said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Lokomotivi have made the call to Tskhinvali. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
Samtredia asked and Dinamo Tbilisi said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Add another name to the list: Merani have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Vakhtang Arveladze. The answer from Samtredia has not changed — yet.
Samtredia have made the call to Torpedo Kutaisi. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
Signings arrive with a picture of the club in their head, and this one’s picture was bigger than the building. He will play well and he will be gone, in that order, and everybody knows it.
A new face in his position, and Tamaz Makatsaria suddenly has to win back what he thought he owned. Samtredia have promised nothing — clubs rarely do at this stage.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Tskhinvali keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Lokomotivi this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Ural have kept their man, and Lokomotivi go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Guram Kvaratskhelia has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
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.
Lokomotivi have made the call to Central Espanol. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Marcos Pedro is on it.
Lokomotivi have accepted the money. What Samtredia do not yet have is the man, and between here and the photograph is a conversation about wages that both sides are dreading.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Samtredia this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Giorgi Kveladze was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Giorgi Okriashvili is on it.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Ruben Gauto trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Dennis Amoako and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Squad28 Dec 2026
Marcos Pedro 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.
A mark of 7.73 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 17-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
At 20 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Lokomotivi this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Marcos Pedro 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.
Nobody at Lokomotivi will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.