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With fighting spirit, passion and playful accents, Georgia surprisingly reached the round of 16 of the 2024 European Championship. Great team spirit, unbridled fighting spirit and enormous passion have led to this triumph.
The enthusiasm knew no bounds, tears of joy flowed, the noise generated by the tens of thousands of Georgia fans in the Gelsenkirchen Arena during the game could only be described as deafening. Only Willy Sagnol seemed to be supervising a friendly match during the 90 minutes instead of being responsible for the small football nation’s biggest victory.
Only after the final whistle, during the enthusiastic team photo on the lawn in front of the curve with the Georgian fans, did the coach also raise his arms, with tears in his eyes.
“We have so much focus on the competition. We probably won’t realize what we have achieved until we lose. I am very proud to be the coach of this team,” the coach said later with a mischievous grin on his face.
Now round of 16 against Spain
The calming instructions of the extremely experienced coach in the extremely turbulent environment had an extremely positive effect. Because it was the biggest night for Georgian football so far.
The national team of the small football nation (3.7 million inhabitants) defeated the overwhelming favorite Portugal 2-0 (1-0) on Wednesday evening (June 26, 2024) – and thus sensationally secured a ticket to the round of 16 in their first European Championship participation.
On Sunday, the Georgian team will face top favorite Spain in Cologne. A preliminary round result that even the boldest optimists in Georgian football would not have predicted.
Kitschy story
Khvicha Kvaratskhelia (2nd) and Georges Mikautadze (56th) secured the victory with their goals and made the football-mad nation forget, at least for one evening, the mass protests against the ruling party “Georgian Dream”, which passed an extremely controversial law on supposed “foreign influence”. Above all, the Russia-friendly policy of Prime Minister Irakli Kobachidze is causing unrest in the country.
This special Georgian evening in the Ruhr region, which got the whole nation celebrating, must have been all the more pleasant: The story that the Georgians have written so far at this European Championship is almost kitschy. They are continuing their own football fairytale.
More bite
“I am incredibly happy. We were sure we would win. We wanted to fight like lions and that’s what we did,” said Kvaratskhelia. “It was a great team performance. We made history.”
“They just had the right bite, we didn’t match their intensity,” said Portugal coach Roberto Martinez, agreeing with the Georgian goalscorer.
Energy not channeled in the right direction
Willy Sagnol’s team showed such great commitment, a special team spirit and passion in all three matches, as if it was a matter of the heart for each individual player to make this European Championship a unique, unforgettable experience for all Georgians. There was a great spectacle in each case.
In their opening match against Turkey, the Georgians were unable to channel their great energy in the 1:3 defeat. In the 1:1 match against the Czech Republic, they had an outstanding goalkeeper in Giorgi Mamardashvili and kept a cool head – and thus won the first European Championship point in history.
Positive learning effects
The third group match was the crowning achievement so far: against the Portuguese, who had already qualified for the round of 16 teams and were disappointing overall, the Georgians applied all the positive learning effects of this tournament: a strong fighting spirit, a cool head, footballing qualities, a lot of defensive discipline and players in top form such as Mamardashvili, Kvaratskhelia and Mikautadze (3 goals at the European Championship). In the end, they deservedly triumphed.
“We have players who not only want to win, they also want to win in a beautiful way. If you look at our bench alone, we may not have the best players there. But in terms of humanity and group dynamics, we are very good. I am very happy,” said Sagnol.
Spain perhaps too big?
It was an evening that Kvaratskhelia in particular will never forget. In addition to his opening goal and his place in the round of 16, another of his dreams came true. “I got a Cristiano Ronaldo jersey and he exchanged a few words with me. I am very grateful for that,” said the attacker.
But then he turned his attention to the upcoming match. “I respect Spain so much. We know them very well. But we saw today that we can compete against teams like that. We will be there to fight and win,” said Kvaratskhelia.
Coach Sagnol was a little more reserved than his attacker. “Spain is probably the best team in the group phase, perhaps too big for us. We’ll see,” said the 47-year-old. But the Iberians will probably not take Georgia lightly after this preliminary round.
