“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.
Adem Arous 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.
Squad29 Nov 2027
Words at Lokomotivi training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Mustafa Hekimoğlu 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 is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of 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 The request is on a desk at Lokomotivi, and it is not being withdrawn.
A mark of 8.07 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 20-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
“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.
Joël Kabongo 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.
“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.
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.
8.84. 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.
Zugdidi made Lokomotivi work for it, but the scoreboard read 1‑0 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Squad14 Jun 2027
Words at Lokomotivi training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Lasha Ozbetelashvili 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 Lokomotivi this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Boardroom28 Dec 2026
139% 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.
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 Lokomotivi this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 20 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
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.
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 injury that keeps coming back, keeps being rushed back from, and quietly costs more careers than the dramatic ones. 15 days is the estimate; the honest figure depends on whether anybody is patient.
Squad23 Nov 2026
Words at Lokomotivi training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Lasha Ozbetelashvili 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.
In brief
SquadJoël Kabongo has become a man the manager trusts
Santiago Mera 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 is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
The words a physio says slowly. 19 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.
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.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 20 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
Zarija Lambulić was on a different afternoon to everybody else
9.01. 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.
17 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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Lokomotivi know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
“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.
Joël Kabongo 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.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Words at Lokomotivi training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Gegi Geguchadze 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.
0‑1 to Dila, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Yuriy Kravchuk was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.32. 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.
An error at the back is a moment; an error in goal is a goal. Mykyta Shevchenko knows it, the crowd knew it instantly, and there was nobody behind him to make it anything else.