The Zugdidi Chronicle
Match18 May 2030
Zugdidi tear Sapovnela apart
Rarely has this fixture seen a display like it: 4‑0 against Sapovnela, and it could have been more.
Squad20 May 2030
A day Iyed Haj Khalifa will not forget
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.
Market20 May 2030
Mirian Zoidze asks to leave Zugdidi
“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.
Market20 May 2030
Sandro Arveladze has one foot out of the door
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Zugdidi they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad20 May 2030
Words exchanged at Zugdidi
Welton Júnior 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.
Player ratings20 May 2030
Ninety minutes of Iyed Haj Khalifa at his very best
Marked 9.54. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Zugdidi.
Squad20 May 2030
Irakli Chakvetadze 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 ratings20 May 2030
Irakli Chakvetadze was unplayable
Successful dribbles: 19. 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.
Market20 May 2030
One of our own: Tornike Shengelia joins the Zugdidi first team
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Tornike Shengelia is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
In brief
- Market Guram Kashia steps up from the Zugdidi academy
- Player ratings Saba Mchedlidze was on a different afternoon to everybody else
- Squad Irakli Chakvetadze reaches 100 appearances