Willy Sagnol is used to it by now, but one more ovation never hurt anyone. Following Georgia’s victory against Portugal (2-0), in Gelsenkirchen, Wednesday June 26, the French coach of the Crusaders received loud applause from journalists at a press conference. As during the country’s historic qualification for the Euro in March, and after the point in the draw acquired against the Czech Republic (1-1) on Saturday.
But this applause on Wednesday had a completely different flavor: that of an unexpected qualification for the round of 16 – by being one of the best third-placed players – for Petit Poucet in the competition, the 76th nation in the FIFA rankings. At the final whistle, all the Crusaders players went to celebrate this feat at length in front of the 18,000 Georgian supporters present in the stands of the Veltins-Arena, some of whom shed tears of joy.
“This is the happiest day in the lives of Georgians. We wrote history. Nobody believed we could do it but we did it”, welcomed Khvicha Kvaratskhelia, scorer of the first goal of the match, from the start (2ᵉ). This victory, against a Portugal assured of being first before the match and which fielded an second team, the Georgians confirmed it thanks to a penalty scored by Georges Mikautadze (57th) – the FC Metz striker is the top scorer of the Euro with three goals – and another great performance from its goalkeeper, Giorgi Mamardashvili, author of five saves.
“I don’t have the words. I am so proud of my players, of the image they gave of Georgia today”, enjoyed Willy Sagnol after the meeting. At the same time, images of jubilation in the streets of Tbilisi were already flooding social networks. In recent months, the capital of the Caucasian country has become more accustomed to hosting large demonstrations against the bill on “foreign influence”, finally promulgated on June 3. A text modeled on a 2012 Russian law whose objective is to muzzle any opposition that could express itself through civil society or independent media.
The Georgian political context was invited to the Euro
“This performance at the Euro eclipses all this political news”, notes Nino Samkharadze, analyst at the Georgian Institute of Politics in Tbilisi. Georgians – 80% of whom say they are pro-European – now fear a rapprochement with Russia. The bill was first abandoned in 2023 following a massive mobilization, before being re-emerged in April by Georgian Dream, the ruling party.
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