Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Lokomotivi they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
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.
Squad22 Oct 2029
Paul Bashi 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.
Boardroom22 Oct 2029
112% of the income goes out in wages at Lokomotivi
Every club in football pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time somebody has tried 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 Lokomotivi can pretend not to have heard.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Lokomotivi they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Tarek Carranza 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.
Squad15 Oct 2029
Words at Lokomotivi training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Paul Bashi 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 watch every Lokomotivi game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Dinamo Batumi runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Lokomotivi can pretend not to have heard.
6 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.
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.
Irakli Siradze 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 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.
38 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Lokomotivi lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Torpedo Kutaisi go through and Lokomotivi go home, 1‑2 the scoreline that did it. The dressing room will call the league the priority now, because that is what dressing rooms say.
Yevhen Protasov 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 name of Aleksandre Turkia has come up in conversations Lokomotivi were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Squad25 Jun 2029
Words at Lokomotivi training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Tarek Carranza 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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 65 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
It has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
The words a physio says slowly. 54 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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Luka Archaia will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Lokomotivi the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Yevhen Protasov 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.
In brief
SquadA muscle injury sidelines Đorđe Glišović for 15 days
Gegi Geguchadze 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.
Squad23 Oct 2028
Words at Lokomotivi training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Tarek Carranza 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.
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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Lokomotivi can pretend not to have heard.
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.
Jakub Buchel 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.
Every long career reaches the week the player starts thinking about the last one. He would like it to be at the club that first put him on a pitch, and Lokomotivi now know that too.
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.
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 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.
Đorđe Glišović 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.
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.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Ognjen Kersan has just signed for Lokomotivi, and for once the answer mattered.
Merani paid $11.0K and Lokomotivi took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
Squad17 Jan 2028
Words at Lokomotivi training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Đorđe Glišović 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.
He is 19, and nobody at Lokomotivi signed him for this season. Deals like this are judged in four years, by people who may not still be in the building.