European football championships | Georgia’s lone star was left in the dark when Turkey’s prodigy settled with a dream move

Dortmund

Turkey–Georgia 3–1

Extra time at the end, the match between Turkey and Georgia seemed to stop in place. Khvitsha Kvaratskhelia had centered the ball in the Turkish goal, but the shot went wide. Two Georgian players were lying on the surface of the field, two were squatting and the goalkeeper was on his knees at the other end. There was desperation in that still image.

But Georgia still got a free kick. Kvaratskhelia kissed the ball, sent it into the goal, and only sheer bad luck prevented the equalizer. After the corner kick, Turkey counter-attacked, and Kerem Akturkoglu completed the 3-1 victory with an empty net.

That was the end of Georgia’s valiant fight in the first EC tournament match in the country’s history.

“We have given a great image of Georgian football. We can be proud of our performance,” Georgia’s French head coach Willy Sagnol.

Georgia’s Khvitša Kvaratskhelia held his head late in the second half after a knock. Picture: Jussi Eskola

Minute before his first tournament match, Georgian superstar Khvitša Kvaratskhelia, 23, stood next to the center circle in silent prayer. Then he made the sign of the cross and looked up at the field.

As if he wanted to erase from his mind the media frenzy of the last few days.

In the Georgian team, the greatest attention was obviously focused on the only player in the star category of the national team. The 23-year-old Kvaratskhelia has played the last two years in Napoli in Serie A and won one Italian championship.

Kvaratskhelia has been in the center of a kind of media frenzy in recent days, when according to media reports, PSG would like to buy the Georgian star from Napoli for 100 million euros. Napoli don’t want to sell their star.

Kvaratskhelia’s agent told Georgian media outlet Sport Imed that he wants his client to play in the Champions League. Kvaratskhelia’s father pushed his own spoon into the soup, saying he wanted his son to leave Naples.

Accompanied by such a commotion, Kvaratskhelia came to his first competitive match in Dortmund on the fifth day of the EC tournament.

Turkey and the meeting with Georgia was among the less attractive matches in the preliminary groups. But on the spot it was something completely different, because the supporters’ storm of screams, boos, whistles and goal celebrations were like something from a final.

Georgia came under tremendous pressure early on. Turkey played really well and tried to find opportunities to break through. Georgia withstood the pressure for nearly 25 minutes, and then Mert Müldür fired the ball into the top corner after a bad clearance by Georgia.

Seven minutes later, Georgia silenced the Turkish crowd after a fine attack when Georges Mikautadze directed the ball into the front corner of the goal.

Kvaratskhelia’s own attempts to create a scoring chance ended time and again with the Turkish defenders.

Arda Güler shot the ball into the top corner of Georgia’s goal. Picture: Ozan Kose/AFP

In the 65th minute, the fact that the team could not get out of the pressure backfired for Georgia for the second time. The Turkish audience erupted into screams when the country’s own prodigy Arda Güler, 19, shot the ball with his club into the top corner of the goal. That decided the match.

Because of goals like these, Güler plays for Real Madrid these days. According to the BBC, Güler became the youngest player in the history of the EC tournament to score a goal in the EC debut at the age of 19 years and 114 days. Previous record holder Cristiano Ronaldo was 14 days older at the time of the record.