“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 Batumi can pretend not to have heard.
“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 Batumi know it.
Revaz Chiteishvili 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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Paulo Vitor trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Imran Oulad Omar signs something — a contract at Dinamo Batumi or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Torpedo Kutaisi next, and one man in the Dinamo Batumi dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Dinamo Batumi. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
A year in and the city has not opened up, the language has not come, and lunch is eaten alone more often than anybody at Dinamo Batumi would admit. It shows on Saturdays.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Paulo Vitor trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Lazare Kupatadze is on it.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 21 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.
Paulo Vitor 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.
He trains hard, says the right things and goes home to an empty flat. Nobody at Dinamo Batumi has done anything wrong, which is exactly what makes it so difficult to fix.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Fluminense is saying, and nobody at Dinamo Batumi is enjoying the guessing.
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.
He trains hard, says the right things and goes home to an empty flat. Nobody at Dinamo Batumi has done anything wrong, which is exactly what makes it so difficult to fix.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Dinamo Batumi know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
The message was aimed at the stands as much as the dressing room: Luka Tsulukidze plays, and the argument is closed until the manager decides otherwise.
“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.
Boardroom1 Feb 2027
Dinamo Batumi close the window on a squad of their own making
4 in and 3 out, and no more changes for months. The manager has what he has, the supporters have their opinion of it, and the table will have the last word.
The deal with Fluminense is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Central is saying, and nobody at Dinamo Batumi is enjoying the guessing.
Dinamo Batumi asked and Maringá said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Matheus Galdino 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 shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. Dinamo Batumi will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Imran Oulad Omar signs something — a contract at Dinamo Batumi or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
The offer from Dinamo Tbilisi for Paulo Vitor was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Matheus Galdino has just signed for Dinamo Batumi, and for once the answer mattered.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Internacional keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Revaz Chiteishvili 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.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Matheus Galdino and Dinamo Batumi agree another 4 years.
The system has changed and his position has not. A footballer can improve his form; he cannot improve the manager’s formation, and that is the whole of the problem.
He is going to Kolkheti-1913 Poti, the club has $1.1M it did not have on Friday, and the phone-ins have already decided how they feel about that. Selling well and selling somebody they loved are not the same skill.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Guram Japaridze is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Kolkheti-1913 Poti pay $1.1M, and the deal is done. The number reads well on a balance sheet; whether it reads well on the pitch is next season's question.
The chase for Tornike Megrelishvili ended with $220.0K changing hands and Iberia 1999 out of reasons to say no. The supporters will judge the fee the only way that matters: on Saturdays.
Dinamo Batumi asked and Samtredia said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Dinamo Batumi have made the call to Internacional. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
The clubs have shaken hands with Iberia 1999; the player has not yet. Personal terms are next, and personal terms are where more deals die than anybody prints.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Thalyson is living that version at Dinamo Batumi, and it tends to show in the first month.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Dinamo Tbilisi keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 21 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Dila have kept their man, and Dinamo Batumi go back to a list with one name crossed off 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 Dinamo Batumi this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Imran Oulad Omar is on it.
The offer from Dinamo Tbilisi for Luka Kapianidze was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Nikoloz Baladze is 20, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Matheus Barbosa 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.
Dinamo Batumi asked and Samtredia said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
A loan enquiry to Dinamo Tbilisi: cover, or a look at somebody the club cannot afford to buy yet. Either way the answer will come back inside the week.
A loan enquiry to Dinamo Tbilisi: cover, or a look at somebody the club cannot afford to buy yet. Either way the answer will come back inside the week.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Imran Oulad Omar signs something — a contract at Dinamo Batumi or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
The registration window is open and the phone has started. Between now and the deadline this club will be linked with forty players and sign three, which is the usual ratio.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 21 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.
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 Batumi this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Boardroom28 Dec 2026
85% of the income goes out in wages at Dinamo Batumi
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.
Nobody at Dinamo Batumi 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.
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Imran Oulad Omar is on it.
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
Qualification is done, and next season the floodlights come on for something bigger. A stage for the players, oxygen for the accounts and a passport for everybody else.
It will be explained as a change for the team and it may even be one. Nobody who has worn one believes that, and neither does the man who has just had it taken away.
Done, and with games to spare. Next season has floodlit nights against clubs from other countries in it, and the accounts have a line they did not have last year.
At 20 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Andrii Andreichuk was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Every club 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 it has been tried.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Andrii Andreichuk signs something — a contract at Dinamo Batumi or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Douglas Oliveira was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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 Batumi this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Nobody at Dinamo Batumi 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.
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.
Imran Oulad Omar and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad9 Nov 2026
Words at Dinamo Batumi training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Douglas Oliveira 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.
28 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Dinamo Batumi lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
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 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.
Every club 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 it has been tried.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Andrii Andreichuk signs something — a contract at Dinamo Batumi or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
36 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Dinamo Batumi lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Nobody at Dinamo Batumi 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.
47 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Dinamo Batumi lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
At 20 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Douglas Oliveira was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
12 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Imran Oulad Omar is on it.
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Paulo Vitor has written the date down.
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.
At 20 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
63 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Dinamo Batumi lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
At 20 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Dinamo Batumi can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Matheus Barbosa 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.
Every club 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 it has been tried.
73 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Dinamo Batumi lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
81 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Dinamo Batumi lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Imran Oulad Omar 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.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Words at Dinamo Batumi training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Douglas Oliveira 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 Dinamo Batumi 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.
88 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Dinamo Batumi lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
At 20 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Douglas Oliveira was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Dinamo Batumi asked and Goianésia said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
11 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
95 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Dinamo Batumi lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 21 arrived, 3 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Coritiba is saying, and nobody at Dinamo Batumi is enjoying the guessing.
Dinamo Batumi asked and Omonoia said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
The manager has re-ordered his thinking and Paulo Vitor has come out of it lower. He will be told it is temporary, and the players who have heard that before will avoid his eye.
The captaincy has been taken off Imran Oulad Omar. Dinamo Batumi will call it a decision about the team; a dressing room reads it as a verdict on a man.
Nothing is announced when this happens and everybody knows. He is a bigger part of the plan at Dinamo Batumi than he was a month ago, and the training ground worked that out before the team sheet said so.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Andrii Andreichuk signs something — a contract at Dinamo Batumi or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
In brief
MarketThe window shut and Luka Kapianidze is still in the building
102 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Dinamo Batumi lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Sport Recife keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Crvena Zvezda have kept their man, and Dinamo Batumi go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
The dugout31 Aug 2026
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 0‑1 Lasha Qazaishvili left the room before anybody could ask which.
Dinamo Batumi have made the call to Goianésia. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
A shoot-out is remembered by its ending, and this one ends with Lazare Kupatadze: 3 kept out, and a set of supporters who will describe every one of them for the next twenty years.
110 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Dinamo Batumi lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Dinamo Batumi offered $3.2M; Zira said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
The deal with Sport Recife is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Words at Dinamo Batumi training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Douglas Oliveira 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.
The board was up, the win was priced in, and then Samtredia scored. There is no worse minute to concede in and the ground emptied in the silence that follows one.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $200.2K — a club that wants Oto Goshadze enough to be asked twice.
Matheus Barbosa 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.
There is a level at which a footballer stops being tested and starts being contained, and he reached it some time ago. Dinamo Batumi know it, and so does everybody who watches him.
10 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Dinamo Batumi are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Antônio Falcão is living that version at Dinamo Batumi, and it tends to show in the first month.
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 academy exists for exactly this morning. Temur Chakvetadze has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Giorgi Shengelia 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.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Douglas Oliveira has just signed for Dinamo Batumi, and for once the answer mattered.
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 Batumi this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Add another name to the list: Gareji Sagarejo have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Irakli Rukhadze. The answer from Dinamo Batumi has not changed — yet.
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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Primorje have kept their man, and Dinamo Batumi go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Dinamo Batumi, another week without a signature from Sandro Altunashvili.
In brief
Transfer targetsA loan move for Kauan is in the works