Nobody on the board has said anything against the manager, which is the point — they have stopped saying anything for him either.
Player ratings3 Aug 2043
A brace, and Ivan Ananjev takes the afternoon — 7.92
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Ivan Ananjev provided it, and the 7.92 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Dinamo Tbilisi is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Dan Marcel Kakadje and Dinamo Tbilisi agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
This is money that keeps the lights on rather than money that buys a centre-half, and the difference is the whole story. A club funded by its owner rather than by its football has exactly one conversation left ahead of it.
Squad3 Aug 2043
Words at Dinamo Tbilisi training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Mattia Santagostino Baldi 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Dinamo Tbilisi this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Pavel Holes is the division's best young player this month
At 20 he has spent a month being better than everybody his age in the league, which is a different and harder thing than one good afternoon. Dinamo Tbilisi will try very hard not to make too much of it.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Dinamo Tbilisi can pretend not to have heard.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Dinamo Tbilisi is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Successful dribbles: 20. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad20 Jul 2043
Words at Dinamo Tbilisi training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Mattia Santagostino Baldi 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Dinamo Tbilisi this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Dinamo Tbilisi is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Everyone has stopped pretending: Lokomotivi will make the call about Stefan Alaba this week. Dinamo Tbilisi have a number in mind, and the number is not shy.
Squad22 Jun 2043
Words at Dinamo Tbilisi training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Mattia Santagostino Baldi 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Dinamo Tbilisi this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Dinamo Tbilisi told Sergio Montero something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Dinamo Tbilisi will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
This is money that keeps the lights on rather than money that buys a centre-half, and the difference is the whole story. A club funded by its owner rather than by its football has exactly one conversation left ahead of it.
Squad8 Jun 2043
Words at Dinamo Tbilisi training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Mattia Santagostino Baldi 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 have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and Dinamo Tbilisi know it.
The embargo bars a fee being paid for a player, whatever the manager thinks the squad needs. Every rumour printed about this club between now and its lifting is a rumour about a deal that cannot happen.
The deal that would have taken Luken Solís to Sapovnela has collapsed at the last stage, and he reports back to Dinamo Tbilisi with a summer to forget and a season still to play. Nobody is saying which side walked away.
Nobody makes a documentary about a hamstring and everybody in the game fears one. Dinamo Tbilisi will be careful with the return date, because the second one is always worse than the first.
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.
Ivan Ananjev 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 manager may talk to whoever he likes and may pay nobody. A squad survives a window like this by borrowing, by promoting, and by hoping the injuries land somewhere else.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Dinamo Tbilisi 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 Dinamo Tbilisi, and it is not being withdrawn.
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Dinamo Tbilisi this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad25 Aug 2042
Daniil Rodin 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Dinamo Tbilisi this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad28 Jul 2042
Daniil Rodin 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.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Bruno Valdez has his answer from Dinamo Tbilisi; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
Nobody at Dinamo Tbilisi 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.
“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 Dinamo Tbilisi, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad30 Jun 2042
Daniil Rodin 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Dinamo Tbilisi this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
Nobody at Dinamo Tbilisi 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.
14 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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Dinamo Tbilisi will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
He will be fined, he will apologise, and he will play on Saturday. The order of those three tells you everything about what a football club actually values.
The interest is real enough to have reached print. Dinamo Tbilisi have said nothing, which in a transfer window is its own kind of answer.
Squad2 Jun 2042
Daniil Rodin 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.
The shortfall was covered from upstairs again. Supporters are entitled to be relieved and entitled to ask what happens the month it is not, and both feelings usually arrive together.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Dinamo Tbilisi will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Dinamo Tbilisi is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad5 May 2042
Daniil Rodin 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.
The shortfall was covered from upstairs again. Supporters are entitled to be relieved and entitled to ask what happens the month it is not, and both feelings usually arrive together.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 84 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
The 87th minute, half the ground already edging towards the exits, and Lasha Lobjanidze decided nobody was going anywhere. Kolkheti had no time left to answer.
1 kept out in the shoot-out, and a stadium that will still be describing them in twenty years. A goalkeeper only needs one of these to be remembered forever.
Player ratings7 Apr 2042
Radja Fellaini could not have asked for more on his first appearance — 7.20
Debuts are survived rather than enjoyed. This one was enjoyed: 7.20, 0 goals, and a manager already being asked whether he starts again next week.
At 35 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.14 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Boardroom7 Apr 2042
An order from above at Dinamo Tbilisi: somebody has to go
Balance sheets do not care about form or about who the manager was planning to build around. The board have decided a sale is required, and the only question left is which name ends up carrying it.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 112 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
34 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Dinamo Tbilisi lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Dinamo Tbilisi can pretend not to have heard.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Davis Ikaunieks will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Dinamo Tbilisi the goodbyes have quietly begun.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Dinamo Tbilisi this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match8 Mar 2042
Nobody could stop scoring
6 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Dinamo Tbilisi and Zugdidi in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
Squad10 Mar 2042
Daniil Rodin 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.
The manager may talk to whoever he likes and may pay nobody. A squad survives a window like this by borrowing, by promoting, and by hoping the injuries land somewhere else.
The words a physio says slowly. 84 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Dinamo Tbilisi can pretend not to have heard.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Dinamo Tbilisi is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad20 Jan 2042
Julen Parra 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.
Peter Bennett 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.
Everyone has stopped pretending: Sapovnela will make the call about Saba Okriashvili this week. Dinamo Tbilisi have a number in mind, and the number is not shy.