The Georgian football team is the biggest surprise of this year’s European Championship. Before the tournament, Georgians were considered one of the weakest teams in the tournament, but now they have overcome the barrier of the group stage and entered the knockout matches, where no one predicted their place.
Georgia reached the EC 1/8 finals thanks to an unexpected victory in the decisive group stage game against 2016 European champions Portugal. They won important three points, accumulating four in total during the group tournament, which allowed them to reach the play-off as the third place.
Although the Georgians will face the mighty Spain in the first play-off match and their chances are quite slim, they have still won the hearts of football fans and achieved a feat.
Interestingly, Georgian football has quite a remarkable connection with the Portuguese superstar Cristiano Ronaldo. He opened a football academy in the capital Tbilisi in 2013 to promote the growth of young talents, but no one even thought that the children of this academy would upset the Portuguese in the European Championship 11 years later.
A user of the social network “Reddit” counted that 11 players from the current Georgian national team were members of the academy established by Ronaldo. And at the head of all of them is Hviča Kvaratchelija, the biggest star of Georgia at the moment.
The 23-year-old Kvarachelia scored one of the goals in the match against Portugal and was recognized as the most valuable footballer of the game (this award is given after each match).
After the match, Hviča exchanged shirts with Ronaldo and published a picture on the social network “Instagram”, adding the description “dreams”. Also after the victory, he first ran to Ronaldo, who congratulated the Georgian star.
“I thought that we reached the maximum by qualifying for the final tournament,” the media “The Athletic” told another Georgia head coach Willy Sagnolo, who once played for the French national team. “I am proud to be the coach of this national team!”
Sanyol also admitted that he still can’t believe what the Georgian football players have done, saying that he will begin to understand it only when the championship ends.
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Hvich Kvaracheli and Cristiano Ronaldo. Photo: AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino/Scanpix
2024-06-28 19:06:03
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