Marked for Vakhtang Qazaishvili
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad12 Jun 2028
19 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Lokomotivi lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Match10 Jun 2028
5‑0, and the margin flattered nobody — it could have carried another goal or two without complaint. Afternoons like this are why people keep coming.
Market12 Jun 2028
The offer from Dinamo Tbilisi for Aleksandre Turkia 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.
Squad12 Jun 2028
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 ratings12 Jun 2028
Aleksandre Turkia, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 8.68
A mark of 8.68 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
The dugout12 Jun 2028
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Lokomotivi have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Transfer targets12 Jun 2028
$600.0K on the table at Dinamo Batumi. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Player ratings12 Jun 2028
Marked 10.00 — 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.
Squad12 Jun 2028
At 21, Aleksandre Turkia is already the best thing here
An average of 7.02 in a first team he is several years too young for. Lokomotivi have something, and by now the whole division has noticed.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad5 Jun 2028
The words a physio says slowly. 26 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.
The terraces5 Jun 2028
The mood at Lokomotivi has turned into something else
Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now is.
Match31 May 2028
The cup run ends for Lokomotivi
0‑3 against Dinamo Batumi, and the road stops here. Cup exits are quick deaths — no second leg, no next week, just the league from now until May.
Player ratings5 Jun 2028
Successful dribbles: 29. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
The terraces5 Jun 2028
Lokomotivi are taken apart by Dinamo Batumi — and the town wants answers
It finished 0-3. A cup exit is a disappointment; this was a public dismantling, and the difference between the two is the number of people who will still be talking about it in August.
Market5 Jun 2028
“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 Lokomotivi, and it is not being withdrawn.
Match3 Jun 2028
The wait goes on for Lokomotivi
5 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
Transfer targets5 Jun 2028
Everything agreed with Gagra, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
Match3 Jun 2028
3 matches without a goal for Lokomotivi
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 3 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad29 May 2028
The words a physio says slowly. 33 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.
Squad29 May 2028
9 saves: Aydın Bağ was the team
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 9 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Player ratings29 May 2028
Successful dribbles: 32. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Market29 May 2028
“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 Lokomotivi, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad29 May 2028
Glib Katkov 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.
Squad29 May 2028
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Temur Kiteishvili commits to Lokomotivi for another 3 years.
The dugout29 May 2028
No hiding place for Augusto
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Augusto, and the manager let it.
The dugout29 May 2028
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Mikheil Arveladze after the 0‑0 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
The dugout29 May 2028
Dato Bukia knocks on the manager's door
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Lokomotivi, and both men came out saying it was fine.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad22 May 2028
The words a physio says slowly. 41 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.
Player ratings22 May 2028
Marked 7.96 at 21, in a side that makes no allowances for age. He did not need any, and he looked the least nervous man on the pitch.
Market22 May 2028
Felipe is on his way
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Lokomotivi is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Player ratings22 May 2028
Kukri was unplayable
Successful dribbles: 23. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
Squad22 May 2028
Badri Gogoberishvili 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.
Squad22 May 2028
Guram Japaridze 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.
Match20 May 2028
Aleksandre Turkia scored, and precious little else went right: 1‑2 to Merani, and a quiet walk to the dressing room.
The dugout22 May 2028
No hiding place for Aydın Bağ
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Aydın Bağ, and the manager let it.
Squad22 May 2028
“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.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad15 May 2028
The words a physio says slowly. 48 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.
Player ratings15 May 2028
Successful dribbles: 26. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
The dugout15 May 2028
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Lokomotivi may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Squad15 May 2028
Guram Japaridze 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 ratings15 May 2028
Yuta Nakano was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.17. 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.
Squad15 May 2028
Home is on Augusto's mind
“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.
Match13 May 2028
A goal on 95 minutes turned three points into one and a good afternoon into an argument about game management that will run until Saturday.
Squad15 May 2028
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.
Match13 May 2028
1‑1, and both dressing rooms will call it two points lost. A draw that asked plenty of questions and answered none of them.