Georgian football hasn’t been the most recognisable location on the footballing map. Still, the recent performances from Giorgi Mamardashvili, Giorgi Chakvetadze and specifically Khvicha Kvaratskhelia have had the footballing world sit up and take notice of what Georgia is cooking over in Eastern Europe.
Football in Georgia is underrated within the wider footballing community in general. The general perception about the football played within the area is a lack of quality which has meant the league has been halted in its progression, hence a lack of coverage of the league from outside the country. Whereas the rise of aforementioned names who have come through the leagues and have made their name in European football has silenced any claims of the lack of quality that the league possess. But despite the underrated claims of their present, their past represents the country’s success; the country’s capital club, FC Dinamo Tbilisi, was one of the more prominent sides in Soviet football and was a significant contender in Soviet Championships. Tbilisi won the UEFA Cup Winners’ Cup in 1981 — arguably the most significant achievement in Georgian football to date — and remains the only Georgian club to have won a European competition.
The current landscape of Georgian football
Despite the brief and underrated past of Georgian football domestically, they’re still yet to make a name for themselves internationally and have not yet qualified for a major tournament as an independent country. Ultimately, that is the aim of the national team, to build towards a promising core of players who can achieve that goal. In the last five years, the names mentioned earlier, Mamardashvili, Chakvetadze and Kvharatskhelia, have been crucial to the core being built.