147 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Lokomotivi lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
“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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Aleksandre Daraselia will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Lokomotivi the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Mehrubon Karimov 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.
“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.
Squad14 Nov 2033
Words at Lokomotivi training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Davit Kobiashvili 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.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Lasha Kobiashvili 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.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Jaba Mikautadze is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Giorgi Chakvetadze 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.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Tornike Mchedlidze and Lokomotivi agree another 3 years.
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.
Lasha Kobiashvili 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.
A window away with the national side, and a shirt at Lokomotivi that briefly doubles as an advertisement. A call-up flatters the player and the club that built him in the same breath.
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.
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 Luka Rekhviashvili is on it.
“I have done everything asked of me in training and it has not changed a thing on a Saturday.” The most familiar complaint in football, and one Lokomotivi will have to answer with minutes or with a transfer.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Lokomotivi. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
He is 19, he is averaging 7.13, and older professionals have started passing to him in the difficult minutes. That last part is the real scouting report.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Nika Ananidze will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Lokomotivi the goodbyes have quietly begun.
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 Luka Metreveli is on it.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Lasha Ananidze trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
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.
“I respect the manager and I am not going to sit here and pretend I am happy.” It is the most common sentence in football and it has never once been the end of a story.
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 Aleksandre Daraselia has written the date down.
“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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Aleksandre Daraselia will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Lokomotivi the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad24 Oct 2033
Words at Lokomotivi training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Davit Kobiashvili 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Davit Kobiashvili was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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.
“I have done everything asked of me in training and it has not changed a thing on a Saturday.” The most familiar complaint in football, and one Lokomotivi will have to answer with minutes or with a transfer.
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.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Lokomotivi, and both men came out saying it was fine.
The message was aimed at the stands as much as the dressing room: Mehrubon Karimov plays, and the argument is closed until the manager decides otherwise.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Sandro Gamsakhurdia is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Archil Arveladze is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Khvicha Lobjanidze is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Davit Ananidze is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Lazare Kupatadze and Lokomotivi agree another 1 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
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.
A call-up flatters the player and the club that produced him in the same breath. Lokomotivi would like him back in one piece and know they will not be consulted.
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.
Squad3 Oct 2033
Words at Lokomotivi training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Davit Kobiashvili 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.
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Davit Kobiashvili has come out of that comparison in the side, and Lokomotivi have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
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 had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Lokomotivi, and both men came out saying it was fine.
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.
Position 8 on 43 points. Every season is a story and this is the last line of it, and now the club has three months to decide what the next one is about.
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.
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.
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 Luka Khelashvili is on it.
A mark of 8.33 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 19-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Lokomotivi asked and Ordabasy said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
He is 19 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
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 Mehrubon Karimov is on it.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Lokomotivi people have started saying his name in the past tense.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Dinamo Batumi have kept their man, and Lokomotivi go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Lokomotivi ran out of time with Dinamo Batumi. The paperwork was open when the deadline passed, and a transfer that was almost done is now a transfer that never happened.
Squad12 Sep 2033
Words at Lokomotivi training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Davit Kobiashvili 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.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Sandro Kobiashvili after 1‑3, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
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 is 19, he is averaging 7.14, and older professionals have started passing to him in the difficult minutes. That last part is the real scouting report.
Boardroom5 Sep 2033
Lokomotivi close the window on a squad of their own making
11 in and 11 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.
Everything agreed with Dinamo Batumi, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
$490.0K on the table at Dinamo Batumi. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Nika Ananidze will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Lokomotivi the goodbyes have quietly begun.
A deal that was a phone call from completion at lunchtime was dead by midnight. Lokomotivi will try again when the window opens; Dinamo Tbilisi may not be selling by then.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Teuta Durrës have kept their man, and Lokomotivi go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Squad5 Sep 2033
Words at Lokomotivi training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Davit Kobiashvili 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.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Chikhura waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Lokomotivi is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
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.
Lokomotivi asked and Dinamo Batumi said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Teuta Durrës have been asked whether they would lend him. Loans are agreed quickly or not at all, and this one will be one or the other by the weekend.
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 supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 1‑3, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version 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.
The 85th minute, half the ground already edging towards the exits, and Revaz Kobiashvili decided nobody was going anywhere. Sioni had no time left to answer.
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Revaz Kobiashvili did not need any: 7.68, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Successful dribbles: 22. 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.
Lokomotivi asked and Dinamo Batumi said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Davit Kobiashvili was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 21-year-old it feels ownership of. Revaz Kobiashvili has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
The phone has started ringing about Nikoloz Kvelashvili again, and this time the name on the line is Chikhura. Lokomotivi are listening politely and promising nothing.
14 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Lokomotivi lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Urartu waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Lokomotivi is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
A season average of 7.19 at an age when most of his year group are still in the youth team. Lokomotivi know what they have, and so, by now, does everybody else.
10 seasons and 143 appearances, all of them here. Careers like this are not designed; they happen to a certain kind of man at a certain kind of club, and this town has one.
The deal with Dinamo Tbilisi 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.
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.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Davit Kobiashvili and Lokomotivi agree another 4 years.
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.
21 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Lokomotivi lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Lokomotivi have lost him in all but the paperwork.
143 appearances across 10 seasons in one shirt. Nobody builds a career like that on purpose any more; it happens to a certain kind of footballer at a certain kind of club.
The deal with Dinamo Batumi 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.
It finished 3‑1, and it was Sandro Shashiashvili’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Lokomotivi.
Squad1 Aug 2033
Words at Lokomotivi training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Davit Kobiashvili 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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 19-year-old it feels ownership of. Nika Kvaratskhelia has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
28 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.
Lokomotivi had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Khazar, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
29 days, the scan says, and scans are kinder than reality. The fixtures in that window have just become somebody else’s job.
Match23 Jul 2033
Nobody could stop scoring
7 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Lokomotivi and Torpedo Kutaisi in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
4 saves does not settle the argument about whose fault it was, and the argument will run all week. Goalkeepers carry these scorelines whoever caused them.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Podillia have kept their man, and Lokomotivi go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
The phone has started ringing about Aleksandre Daraselia again, and this time the name on the line is Urartu. Lokomotivi are listening politely and promising nothing.
In brief
SquadWords at Lokomotivi training over how hard people work
35 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.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Lokomotivi have done the hard part with Saburtalo, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
Lokomotivi asked and Dinamo Batumi 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 supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 2‑3, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
The words a physio says slowly. 42 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.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Luka Rekhviashvili provided it, and the 9.68 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
He is 19, he is averaging 7.23, and older professionals have started passing to him in the difficult minutes. That last part is the real scouting report.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Lokomotivi have done the hard part with Dinamo Tbilisi, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
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.
The offer went to Dinamo Batumi this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
In brief
Player ratingsGiorgi Todua beats them one at a time
The words a physio says slowly. 49 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.
Successful dribbles: 30. 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.
“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.
“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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Aleksandre Daraselia will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Lokomotivi the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Lokomotivi asked and Dinamo Batumi said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Squad4 Jul 2033
Giorgi Todua 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.
56 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.
Dinamo Tbilisi go through and Lokomotivi go home, 2‑4 the scoreline that did it. The dressing room will call the league the priority now, because that is what dressing rooms say.
91 minutes played. Luka Rekhviashvili found the finish in time that only existed because of earlier delays, and Guria went from a point to nothing inside one movement.
The hardest thing about being 20 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Temur Qazaishvili did not need any: 8.26, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
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.
6 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Lokomotivi and Dinamo Tbilisi in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
63 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Lokomotivi lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Two goals and a mark of 9.16 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Lokomotivi people have started saying his name in the past tense.
A mark of 8.08 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
The offer from Foolad for Aleksandre Daraselia 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Slavia Prague have kept their man, and Lokomotivi go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
70 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Lokomotivi lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Lokomotivi have lost him in all but the paperwork.
He is 19, he is averaging 7.23, and older professionals have started passing to him in the difficult minutes. That last part is the real scouting report.
The deal with Dinamo Tbilisi 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.
Successful dribbles: 20. 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Davit Kobiashvili was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Half the programme played, position 7, 23 on the board. Doubling it is the sum every supporter has done and the only one nobody at the club will do out loud.
77 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Lokomotivi lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Two goals and a mark of 9.99 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Kolkheti waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Lokomotivi is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
A mark of 9.52 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 19-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
“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.
6 goals in one match, Nika Kvaratskhelia on the scoresheet, and a scoreline that will look like a misprint. Neutrals could not have asked more of Lokomotivi and Merani.
84 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Lokomotivi lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
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.
He is 19 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
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 players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 3‑0, Sandro Kobiashvili could afford to be generous.
91 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.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Davit Kobiashvili was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout23 May 2033
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 Sandro Kobiashvili left the room before anybody could ask which.
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.
Saburtalo next, and one man in the Lokomotivi dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
98 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Lokomotivi lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
A season average of 7.03 at an age when most of his year group are still in the youth team. Lokomotivi know what they have, and so, by now, does everybody else.
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Sandro Kobiashvili on a 1‑0 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
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 Mehrubon Karimov is on it.
The words a physio says slowly. 44 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.
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.
Boardroom9 May 2033
Nobody left the Lokomotivi dressing room in a hurry
The door stayed shut a long time after the final whistle. What was said in there is between them; whether it worked is between them and Saturday.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Sandro Kobiashvili after 1‑4, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
51 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.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Davit Kobiashvili was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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 respect the manager and I am not going to sit here and pretend I am happy.” It is the most common sentence in football and it has never once been the end of a story.
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
The words a physio says slowly. 58 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.
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 Luka Rekhviashvili is on it.
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
“Nobody outside is coming to save us.” It was short, it was not comfortable, and by all accounts the Lokomotivi squad were quieter afterwards than they had been all season.
65 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.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Nika Kvaratskhelia provided it, and the 9.00 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Revaz Kobiashvili did not need any: 7.63, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 19-year-old it feels ownership of. Nika Kvaratskhelia has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
Squad18 Apr 2033
Words at Lokomotivi training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Giorgi Todua 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.
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Sandro Kobiashvili on a 4‑1 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
72 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Lokomotivi lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
0‑5 to Torpedo Kutaisi, and it was every bit as bad as the number suggests. There are defeats you argue about and defeats you apologise for; this was the second kind.
0 on the scoresheet on his first appearance and a mark of 7.87 beside it. Most debuts are got through; this one was enjoyed, by him and by everybody watching it.
The hardest thing about being 17 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Nika Janelidze did not need any: 7.82, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
He is 18 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
Boardroom11 Apr 2033
Nobody left the Lokomotivi dressing room in a hurry
The door stayed shut a long time after the final whistle. What was said in there is between them; whether it worked is between them and Saturday.
The words a physio says slowly. 79 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.
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.
At 19 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. Lokomotivi will try very hard not to make too much of it.
The demotion a club never announces and a dressing room always notices. Tornike Kashia is further from the side than he was, and the reason will not be given until he asks.
The team sheet says it in public every week until it changes. The only version of being dropped a footballer cannot argue with, and the one he takes hardest.
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 dugout4 Apr 2033
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Sandro Kobiashvili was not hiding it after 0‑0, and nobody in the Lokomotivi dressing room was either.
86 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Lokomotivi lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Davit Kobiashvili was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout28 Mar 2033
The view from the dugout
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” Sandro Kobiashvili, on a 1‑0 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
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 Luka Rekhviashvili is on it.
11 shots, and a count that reads like a good afternoon until you check the other column. Strikers survive weeks like this on the understanding that the chances keep arriving; the day they stop is the day it becomes a problem.
The words a physio says slowly. 93 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.
Two goals and a mark of 8.70 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
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.
A point taken on 93 minutes is worth exactly one point and considerably more than that to a dressing room. This side does not stop, which is a reputation worth more than the result.
The words a physio says slowly. 100 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.
Two goals and a mark of 9.28 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
“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.
At 21 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
A goalkeeper's career is counted in the games nobody scored in, and Luka Khelashvili now has 50 of them across 159 appearances. Nothing about that number was luck.
The words a physio says slowly. 107 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.
A mark of 8.24 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 18-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Nika Ananidze will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Lokomotivi the goodbyes have quietly begun.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Luka Khelashvili and Lokomotivi agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
11 boys move up, and somewhere in the building the people who coached them at twelve are quietly having the best morning of their working year. Nothing about this shows up in a result and it is why the academy exists.
He is 18 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Vakhtang Lobjanidze 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.
The words a physio says slowly. 114 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.
Squad28 Feb 2033
Words at Lokomotivi training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Davit Kobiashvili 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.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Nikoloz Tandashvili and Lokomotivi agree another 2 years.
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.
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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Giorgi Todua trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
The words a physio says slowly. 121 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.
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.
128 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Lokomotivi lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Lokomotivi ran out of time with Dinamo Tbilisi. The paperwork was open when the deadline passed, and a transfer that was almost done is now a transfer that never happened.
Lokomotivi asked and Apollon said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Davit Kobiashvili was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Avtandil Shengelia and Lokomotivi agree another 3 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
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 Luka Metreveli is on it.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Davit Kobiashvili trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
“I did not come here to warm up in front of people.” He is out of contract eventually, he is old enough to count the weeks, and Lokomotivi will have to give him a reason to stay or an exit.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Lokomotivi have lost him in all but the paperwork.
Lokomotivi and Dinamo Tbilisi have settled on $560.0K. The rest belongs to the player and his agent, and a supporter who has watched one of these before knows not to buy the shirt yet.
Boardroom7 Feb 2033
Deadline passes with 0 signed and 2 gone
That is the business done at Lokomotivi until the window opens again. Whether it was enough will be answered on Saturdays rather than in a column, and the first Saturday is close.
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.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Lokomotivi have done the hard part with Dinamo Batumi, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: AZAL keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Khazar have kept their man, and Lokomotivi go back to a list with one name crossed off 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.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Lazare Kupatadze and Lokomotivi agree another 1 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Lokomotivi asked and Dinamo Batumi said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Lokomotivi have made the call to Apollon. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
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.
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.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Lokomotivi, and both men came out saying it was fine.
83 graduates, from a department now rated 15 out of 20. Nothing about the academy appears in a result, and nothing about the club’s future exists without it.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Potenza have kept their man, and Lokomotivi go back to a list with one name crossed off 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 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Davit Kobiashvili was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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 Luka Metreveli is on it.
“I know what people will say. I know what I want, and it is here.” Chikhura had the fee agreed and the shirt ready; they did not have the player, and now they will not.
Everything agreed with Dinamo Tbilisi, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Khazar have kept their man, and Lokomotivi go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
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 Luka Khelashvili is on it.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Lokomotivi, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Boca Juniors have kept their man, and Lokomotivi go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
The name of Temur Qazaishvili has come up in conversations Lokomotivi were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Davit Kobiashvili was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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.
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.
The window is open, and with it the only month of the year when a supporter’s hopes are limited by nothing but arithmetic. The board know the arithmetic; the supporters know the hopes.
“I will play as long as the body lets me and stop the day it does not.” He is 37, with 302 appearances behind him, and the club has to plan for a decision that is not yet made.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Giorgi Todua trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 92 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Davit Kobiashvili was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Levan Mikautadze and Lokomotivi agree another 4 years.
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 Mehrubon Karimov is on it.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 99 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
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.
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 Luka Metreveli is on it.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Davit Kobiashvili trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
“I respect the manager and I am not going to sit here and pretend I am happy.” It is the most common sentence in football and it has never once been the end of a story.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Lokomotivi will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Nika Ananidze will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Lokomotivi the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad13 Dec 2032
Words at Lokomotivi training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Davit Kobiashvili 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.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Lokomotivi, and both men came out saying it was fine.
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.
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.
Nothing is announced when this happens and everybody knows. He is a bigger part of the plan at Lokomotivi than he was a month ago, and the training ground worked that out before the team sheet said so.
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.
It is a strip of cloth and it decides nothing on a Saturday. It still tells the dressing room exactly whose opinion the manager values, which is the whole point of it.
83 graduates, from a department now rated 15 out of 20. Nothing about the academy appears in a result, and nothing about the club’s future exists without it.
“Judge me on him.” Managers do not say that kind of thing by accident — it moves the pressure from Mehrubon Karimov’s shoulders onto his own, and both of them know it.
Dinamo Tbilisi 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.
“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.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 1‑2, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
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 Mehrubon Karimov is on it.
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.
He wheeled away like a man who had been carrying it for months, because he had. Lokomotivi have their signing off the mark and one press-conference question retired.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Davit Kobiashvili was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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 has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Mehrubon Karimov signs something — a contract at Lokomotivi or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
19 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Lokomotivi lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Davit Kobiashvili was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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 Luka Khelashvili is on it.
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.
The words a physio says slowly. 26 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.
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 Luka Rekhviashvili is on it.
A new partner, a signature and a photograph nobody will remember. It funds a fortnight of wages, which is more than most headlines on this page can say for themselves.
He trains hard, says the right things and goes home to an empty flat. Nobody at Lokomotivi has done anything wrong, which is exactly what makes it so difficult to fix.
33 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Lokomotivi lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Davit Kobiashvili was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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.
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.
“I respect the manager and I am not going to sit here and pretend I am happy.” It is the most common sentence in football and it has never once been the end of a story.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Jaba Kvilitaia trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
83 graduates from an academy now rated 15 out of 20. A club this size does not survive any other way, and every name on that list is known in the town.
The words a physio says slowly. 40 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.
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.
Squad25 Oct 2032
Words at Lokomotivi training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Davit Kobiashvili 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.
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 Luka Metreveli is on it.
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.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Davit Kobiashvili was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Lazare Kupatadze and Lokomotivi agree another 1 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
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 Luka Rekhviashvili is on 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 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.
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.
“I respect the manager and I am not going to sit here and pretend I am happy.” It is the most common sentence in football and it has never once been the end of a story.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Lokomotivi, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Position 7 on 51 points. Every season is a story and this is the last line of it, and now the club has three months to decide what the next one is about.
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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Temur Qazaishvili will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Lokomotivi the goodbyes have quietly begun.
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.
Nobody at Lokomotivi is suggesting he is out of form. The manager simply wanted somebody with a different set of qualities for ninety specific minutes, and there is nothing a player can train to fix that.
A mark of 8.05 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 18-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
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.
3 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
At 18 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Davit Kobiashvili was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Saba Mchedlidze and Lokomotivi agree another 3 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
The dugout20 Sep 2032
The view from the dugout
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” Sandro Kobiashvili, on a 2‑0 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
He is 18 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
8.43. 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.
18 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.
“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.
Boardroom6 Sep 2032
Lokomotivi close the window on a squad of their own making
18 in and 6 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.
A deal that was a phone call from completion at lunchtime was dead by midnight. Lokomotivi will try again when the window opens; Dila may not be selling by then.
Dinamo Tbilisi held the lead for 4 minutes, which is not long enough to enjoy it. Lokomotivi answered before the celebration had properly finished, and the shape of the afternoon changed with it.
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Giorgi Gogatishvili is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
The words a physio says slowly. 25 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.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Lokomotivi people have started saying his name in the past tense.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Temur Qazaishvili will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Lokomotivi the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Successful dribbles: 22. 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.
At 18 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
A 1‑0 win over Tskhinvali, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Squad30 Aug 2032
Words at Lokomotivi training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Davit Kobiashvili 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.
32 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.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 8 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Lokomotivi people have started saying his name in the past tense.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Davit Kobiashvili was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The music was off and the showers ran late. What was said in that dressing room stays there, but Saturday will publish the minutes.
The dugout23 Aug 2032
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 0‑4 Sandro Kobiashvili left the room before anybody could ask which.
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.
39 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Lokomotivi lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Lokomotivi have done the hard part with Torpedo Kutaisi, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
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.
At 18 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
The words a physio says slowly. 46 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.
The offer from Samtredia for Tornike Mchedlidze 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.
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Giorgi Gogatishvili commits to Lokomotivi for another 4 years.
Squad9 Aug 2032
Words at Lokomotivi training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Mehrubon Karimov 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 supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑1, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
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.
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.
Squad9 Aug 2032
A Lokomotivi teenager takes the young player award
Nika Kvaratskhelia is 18, and for one weekend he was the best of everybody his age in the division. Nobody should build a career on it and everybody quietly does.
In brief
The dugoutSomebody else is better right now than Nika Ananidze
A mark of 9.85 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 18-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
“I know what people will say. I know what I want, and it is here.” Samtredia had the fee agreed and the shirt ready; they did not have the player, and now they will not.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Temur Qazaishvili will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Lokomotivi the goodbyes have quietly begun.
10 goals in one match, Luka Rekhviashvili on the scoresheet, and a scoreline that will look like a misprint. Neutrals could not have asked more of Lokomotivi and Sapovnela.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Lokomotivi people have started saying his name in the past tense.
“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 2‑3 Sandro Kobiashvili left the room before anybody could ask which.
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 Luka Metreveli is on it.
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Samtredia waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Lokomotivi is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 6 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Dila have kept their man, and Lokomotivi go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
The dugout19 Jul 2032
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 0‑2 Sandro Kobiashvili left the room before anybody could ask which.
Squad19 Jul 2032
Words at Lokomotivi training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Giorgi Todua 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.
A touch he did not want, a bounce he could not have read, and his name in the wrong column. There is no consoling a man after one of these, and Lokomotivi will not try tonight.
The hardest thing about being 17 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Nika Ananidze did not need any: 7.62, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
The deal with Dinamo Tbilisi 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.
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.
3 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
Add another name to the list: Chikhura have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Temur Qazaishvili. The answer from Lokomotivi has not changed — yet.
Lokomotivi and Dila have settled on $430.0K. The rest belongs to the player and his agent, and a supporter who has watched one of these before knows not to buy the shirt yet.
The hardest thing about being 17 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Nika Ananidze did not need any: 7.61, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Marked 8.02 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
The young player of the month award goes to a 17-year-old at Lokomotivi who has looked like the finished article for four weekends running. The next four are the ones that decide whether he is.
8 arrivals, an average age nobody would call a squad, and a set of parents being shown around a building their sons will spend more time in than at home. The scouting has already happened; today is only the paperwork.
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Sandro Shashiashvili is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
Cup ties wait for somebody to seize them, and Nika Ananidze obliged against Dila. 1‑1 on the night, and the name in the next round’s hat is Lokomotivi.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Luka Rekhviashvili provided it, and the 9.19 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Lokomotivi people have started saying his name in the past tense.
A shoot-out is remembered by its ending, and this one ends with Luka Khelashvili: 1 kept out, and a set of supporters who will describe every one of them for the next twenty years.
Player ratings28 Jun 2032
Nika Ananidze, 17, plays like he has been here for years — 7.97
A mark of 7.97 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 17-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.
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.
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 6 goals between Lokomotivi and Guria, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
Lokomotivi asked and Dinamo Tbilisi 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 2‑0 win over Chikhura, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Squad21 Jun 2032
Words at Lokomotivi training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Giorgi Todua 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.
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Sandro Kobiashvili on a 2‑0 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
The team sheet says it in public every week until it changes. The only version of being dropped a footballer cannot argue with, and the one he takes hardest.
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.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Chikhura waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Lokomotivi is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
“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.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Temur Qazaishvili and Lokomotivi agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
The dugout14 Jun 2032
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 0‑1 defeat, delivered by Sandro Kobiashvili to a room that had heard them before.
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.
Successful dribbles: 27. 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.
17 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
A mark of 7.97, and nobody in the ground would argue with it. He was involved in everything that mattered and most of what did not.
Squad7 Jun 2032
Giorgi Todua 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.
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Lasha Chakvetadze is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
The dugout7 Jun 2032
The manager’s verdict
“I am not going to get carried away and I will not let them either. It was a good day. There will be harder ones.” Sandro Kobiashvili kept it short after the 1‑0 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
3 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Lokomotivi can tell you which week it ends in.
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 Luka Metreveli is on it.
The dugout31 May 2032
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Sandro Kobiashvili was not hiding it after 0‑0, and nobody in the Lokomotivi dressing room was either.
The crowd waited for a goal that never came. Saburtalo defended in numbers and left with what they came for, and the two sides could be playing still without troubling a scorer.
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
9 shots, and a count that reads like a good afternoon until you check the other column. Strikers survive weeks like this on the understanding that the chances keep arriving; the day they stop is the day it becomes a problem.
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.
Chances created: 7. Not on the scoresheet and not remotely anonymous — a passing performance that pulled a defence apart without leaving a mark on the column that gets read.
Jaba Kvilitaia 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 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 Luka Khelashvili is on it.
The dugout24 May 2032
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Sandro Kobiashvili was not hiding it after 0‑0, and nobody in the Lokomotivi dressing room was either.
Successful dribbles: 12. 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.
Ninety minutes, no goals, and the argument started before the car park emptied: a point gained, or two thrown away against Dinamo Tbilisi? Both sides of it will still be going on Thursday.
Saburtalo next, and one man in the Lokomotivi dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
Successful dribbles: 20. 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.
16 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
Squad17 May 2032
Words at Lokomotivi training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Giorgi Todua 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.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Sandro Kobiashvili after the 0‑0 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
Ninety minutes, two goalkeepers with clean gloves, and not one finish worth keeping. Tskhinvali will be the happier side with the point.
The dugout17 May 2032
Somebody else is better right now than Nika Ananidze
The team sheet says it in public every week until it changes. The only version of being dropped a footballer cannot argue with, and the one he takes hardest.
He is 18 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Davit Kobiashvili and Lokomotivi agree another 4 years.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Giorgi Todua was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout10 May 2032
The view from the dugout
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” Sandro Kobiashvili, on a 2‑0 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
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 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.
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Revaz Kobiashvili is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
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 Luka Metreveli is on it.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Khvicha Kiteishvili trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
There is no crueller way to lose a football match. Lokomotivi scored in the 91th minute, the restart barely happened, and the away end was still standing when the whistle went.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Giorgi Todua was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Sandro Kobiashvili on a 2‑1 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
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.
9 shots, and a count that reads like a good afternoon until you check the other column. Strikers survive weeks like this on the understanding that the chances keep arriving; the day they stop is the day it becomes a problem.
A mark of 8.07 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 18-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
“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.
At 18 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
The board was up, the win was priced in, and then Sapovnela scored. There is no worse minute to concede in and the ground emptied in the silence that follows one.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Nikoloz Kvelashvili and Lokomotivi agree another 3 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑3, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
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.
Every debut is a small story about the future: Lasha Ananidze, 16 years old, off the academy pitches and into the first team. The parents in the stand will keep the programme.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Mehrubon Karimov signs something — a contract at Lokomotivi or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Cup ties wait for somebody to seize them, and Mikheil Qazaishvili obliged against Chikhura. 8‑1 on the night, and the name in the next round’s hat is Lokomotivi.
The hardest thing about being 17 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Mikheil Qazaishvili did not need any: 10.00, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
“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.
9 goals in one match, Mikheil Qazaishvili on the scoresheet, and a scoreline that will look like a misprint. Neutrals could not have asked more of Lokomotivi and Chikhura.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 18-year-old it feels ownership of. Nika Kvaratskhelia has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
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.
1 on the scoresheet on his first appearance and a mark of 7.68 beside it. Most debuts are got through; this one was enjoyed, by him and by everybody watching it.
It finished 2‑2, and it somehow always looked like it would. One of those afternoons where the table moves less than the tempers.
Squad29 Mar 2032
Words at Lokomotivi training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Giorgi Todua 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 team sheet says it in public every week until it changes. The only version of being dropped a footballer cannot argue with, and the one he takes hardest.
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.
14 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Lokomotivi lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
1 on the scoresheet on his first appearance and a mark of 8.34 beside it. Most debuts are got through; this one was enjoyed, by him and by everybody watching it.
3 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 17-year-old it feels ownership of. Nika Ananidze has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 1‑0, Sandro Kobiashvili could afford to be generous.
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. 21 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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 18-year-old it feels ownership of. Temur Qazaishvili has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Luka Rekhviashvili. 2‑0 against Guria, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.22, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Squad15 Mar 2032
Words at Lokomotivi training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Giorgi Todua 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.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Nika Ananidze and Lokomotivi agree another 4 years.
The dugout15 Mar 2032
The manager’s verdict
“I am not going to get carried away and I will not let them either. It was a good day. There will be harder ones.” Sandro Kobiashvili kept it short after the 2‑0 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
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.
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 Mehrubon Karimov is on it.
28 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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 19 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Luka Rekhviashvili provided it, and the 8.92 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
“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 easiest signature of my career.” Mehrubon Karimov and Lokomotivi agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
14 boys move up, and somewhere in the building the people who coached them at twelve are quietly having the best morning of their working year. Nothing about this shows up in a result and it is why the academy exists.
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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Lokomotivi will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
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.
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.
A year in and the language has not come, the city has not opened up, and he eats alone more often than anybody at Lokomotivi would like to admit. It is showing on Saturdays.
“I did not come here to warm up in front of people.” He is out of contract eventually, he is old enough to count the weeks, and Lokomotivi will have to give him a reason to stay or an exit.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Lokomotivi will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Aleksandre Kashia and Lokomotivi agree another 3 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad23 Feb 2032
Giorgi Todua 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 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.
$57.0K was the most the club would pay and Dinamo Tbilisi were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Giorgi Todua was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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.
Contract settled, hands shaken, no fee changing hands. Vakhtang Lobjanidze leaves Lokomotivi the quiet way, and the wage bill breathes a little easier.
In brief
BoardroomThe Lokomotivi production line keeps running
“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.
The deal that would have taken Vakhtang Lobjanidze to Sapovnela has collapsed at the last stage, and he reports back to Lokomotivi with a summer to forget and a season still to play. Nobody is saying which side walked away.
Lokomotivi ran out of time with Dinamo Tbilisi. The paperwork was open when the deadline passed, and a transfer that was almost done is now a transfer that never happened.
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 Mehrubon Karimov is on it.
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.
Dinamo Tbilisi have accepted the money. What Lokomotivi do not yet have is the man, and between here and the photograph is a conversation about wages that both sides are dreading.
Boardroom2 Feb 2032
Lokomotivi close the window on a squad of their own making
4 in and 1 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.
$57.0K on the table at Dinamo Tbilisi. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Giorgi Todua was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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 Luka Khelashvili is on it.
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.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Lokomotivi, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Dinamo Tbilisi have kept their man, and Lokomotivi go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Irakli Ananidze 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.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Shota Mchedlidze 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.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Mikheil Kiteishvili is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Temur Kvilitaia 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Giorgi Todua was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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.
Public backing, and the sort that costs a manager something if it turns out to be wrong. Sandro Shashiashvili has been told in front of everybody that the shirt is his.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Sapovnela waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Lokomotivi is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
The offer from Chikhura for Revaz Kobiashvili 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.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Lokomotivi have done the hard part with Dinamo Tbilisi, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
Lokomotivi offered $52.0K; Dinamo Tbilisi 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.
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.
69 graduates, from a department now rated 15 out of 20. Nothing about the academy appears in a result, and nothing about the club’s future exists without 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.
“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.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Dila keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Lokomotivi have gone to Dinamo Tbilisi with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
Add another name to the list: Chikhura have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Revaz Kobiashvili. The answer from Lokomotivi has not changed — yet.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Giorgi Todua was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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.
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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Dila have kept their man, and Lokomotivi go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
The interest is real enough to have reached print. Lokomotivi have said nothing, which in a transfer window is its own kind of answer.
Squad5 Jan 2032
Giorgi Todua 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 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.
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.
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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Gigi Tsiklauri trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
In brief
SquadQuestions about Luka Metreveli on the training pitch