The Merani Sentinel
Squad10 Aug 2026
3 goals for Javohir Esonqulov
The match ball belongs to Javohir Esonqulov, whose 3 goals turned a difficult afternoon into a procession.
Player ratings10 Aug 2026
Nodar Kavtaradze, 33, rolls back the years — 7.98
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.98 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Merani count the cost of losing Lasha Chaladze
63 days, the scan says, and scans are kinder than reality. The fixtures in that window have just become somebody else’s job.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Lasha Chaladze in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Merani this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Player ratings10 Aug 2026
A masterclass from Javohir Esonqulov
Marked 9.41 — 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.
Match8 Aug 2026
Merani find a way past Kolkheti
Kolkheti made Merani work for it, but the scoreboard read 3‑1 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Nodar Kavtaradze 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.
Market10 Aug 2026
One of our own: Saba Kashia joins the Merani first team
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Saba Kashia is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Market10 Aug 2026
Guram Qazaishvili steps up from the Merani academy
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Guram Qazaishvili 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.
In brief
- Market One of our own: Goga Okriashvili joins the Merani first team
- Market One of our own: Mikheil Gamsakhurdia joins the Merani first team
- Match Kolkheti blown away early