Aragvelebi

Sosso Chikaidze once played up front for FC Aragvi Dusheti and Meskheti before taking charge of Aragvelebi's dugout, a fitting return for a coach whose own career ran through the same stretch of Georgian football the club now represents in Tbilisi.

Founded on 28 September 2018 as a club and a children's academy in the same act, Aragvelebi took its name from the Aragvi river valley, in memory of the men who fell defending Tbilisi at the Battle of Krtsanisi at the end of the 18th century. The chairperson, Maia Gagoshidze, has overseen a side that plays its home matches far from the capital, at the Olympic Centre in Dusheti, a 2,000-capacity ground.

The club's short existence has already produced a scoring record worth noting: in its debut season of 2023, forward Alex Pirtskhalava finished as top scorer with 24 goals in 22 matches. The team built on that start in 2024, winning Group A of the Regionuli Liga, the fifth tier, with 23 wins from 26 games and a goal difference of 100 to 15, earning promotion to Liga 4.

Davit Jikia gives the squad a further point of interest — a former Georgia under-21 international who won the championship with Torpedo Kutaisi in 2016 before joining Aragvelebi's forward line.

Promotion has proved harder to repeat. In the 2025 Liga 4 campaign, Aragvelebi finished fourth, missing out on a further step up in the final round against Guria Lanchkhuti. No rivalry has taken hold with that name, nor with any other opponent, and no nickname has attached itself to the club since it left the fifth division. Six years after its academy and first team were founded together, Aragvelebi is still waiting on a second promotion.