EURO 2024: Georgia's 11-year football journey

After the breakaway from the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, Georgian football has always been among the weakest teams in Europe. In this situation, in 2013, a famous businessman of this country, Mr. Pipia, bought the leading football club in Georgia - Dinamo Tbilisi. Immediately after that, a large number of construction works began, from which the Andro Zhordania Dinamo Tbilisi training center according to European standards was formed. On Pipia's initiative, Georgia's most important stadium, Dinamo Arena, was rebuilt to comply with FIFA - UEFA standards.

Kvaratskhelia played brilliantly in Georgia's win over Portugal in the group stage

Another large-scale project was then implemented in the same year: the Dinamo Tbilisi Football Academy was established to support the development of Georgian football, develop future generations of players and promote a healthy lifestyle among Georgians. The academy is the largest modernized of Pipia's football projects, on par with similar projects in Europe. Talented young players are trained completely free of charge under the guidance of professional foreign coaches. Therefore, the Dinamo Tbilisi Academy became a solid foundation for the Dinamo Tbilisi Club as well as Georgian football later on. Training together since childhood and growing up with the same football philosophy helped the players of this academy become a cohesive unit and helped the Georgian national team achieve the encouraging results today.

There was a very special event at the inauguration of this football academy, which was the presence of two famous former players who were teammates at AC Milan, who won the Champions League 2002-2003, Andriy Shevchenko and Kakha Kaladze, along with Cristiano Ronaldo. What no one expected was that the young players of the academy at that time, such as Khvicha Kvaratskhelia, Mamardashvili, Georges Mikautadze, Giorgi Chakvetadze and Giorgi Kochorashvili, after 11 years, defeated Ronaldo's own Portugal team at EURO 2024.

Khvicha Kvaratskhelia is also the representative of Georgia to participate in EURO 2024 for the first time in history. He currently plays for Napoli and was awarded the best player of Serie A in the 2022-2023 season, becoming the new leader of the Georgian team when having the opportunity to develop his talent at major European clubs. After the match against Portugal, Khvicha Kvaratskhelia was voted the best player of the match.

In addition, the comprehensive reform of the current President of the Georgian Football Federation, Levan Kobiashvili, and his colleagues has also helped Georgian football completely abandon old thinking and patterns to rebuild with a more modern mindset. From 2016 to now, 70 football fields have been renovated and 18 new ones have been built in Georgia. In 2015, Georgian football had only 14,676 professional players, now that number has increased nearly 4 times. These are the driving forces that have made this country's football show remarkable progress at EURO 2024.

Source: https://thanhnien.vn/euro-2024-hanh-trinh-11-nam-cua-bong-da-georgia-185240629205754883.htm