Georgia’s best chance to cause a Euro 2024 upset isn’t Khvicha Kvaratskhelia

There are few real stars around Europe who are truly unknown when it comes time for summer international tournaments summer anymore, at least not in the way used to be the case. Czech Republic and Euro ‘96 are a great case in point: few were familiar names before it, a whole raft of players were not just known, but sought-after, following their exploits there.

Modern accessibility to more matches and footage than ever before means some of that surprise element has departed, even if players can still come from nowhere to have a great summer with their national team.

But even from countries with less prestige or history, if they have a genuinely top-tier player, they enter the tournament as known quantities, generally speaking. Georgia, at Euro 2024 in their first competition finals since independence from the Soviet Union, at first seem a case in point.

Khvicha Kvaratskhelia was an unheralded signing in many ways when Napoli took him from Dinamo Batumi in his home nation - he was back there having previously been playing in Russia when the invasion of Ukraine began, thus allowing him to suspend his contract with Rubin Kazan. But within a few months, he was known everywhere: Sparkling Serie A performances, a host of goals and assists and the realisation that he was a top-class performer who warranted much, much more attention than he was getting months earlier.

And yet Georgia present a confusion of both the above statements: firstly, they do arrive with a relative unknown quantity in their ranks who can make an impression, and secondly, it may be this other player, not their best player in Kvaratskhelia, who offers their best route to cause an upset in Group F. Introducing, Georges Mikautadze.

Followers of Ligue 1 will have to forgive the grand introduction, and will perhaps roll their eyes, and move along. Fair enough.

But France’s top flight, and indeed the very bottom of it, is not a go-to, must-watch, catch-all division for a great many viewers of the Euros this summer, and therein may come the revelation for some.

It is there Mikautadze has been playing - and scoring - with regularity since the new year, a half-season of magnificent impact after a first part of the campaign which might have had him doubting his own credentials...and perhaps fearing for his place on the plane to Germany.

The 23-year-old striker left Metz last summer following two good campaigns in front of goal, one in the second tier and one in the first. Ajax it was who snapped him up, yet the Dutch giants’ obvious eye for talent was not translating into an ability to put a team together: last term they spent considerable time in the bottom three and had issues on the pitch and in the dugout, eventually culminating in a fifth-place finish in the Eredivisie.

Far from letting Mikautadze settle into a flowing side, he was barely given a look-in as they struggled to find their groove, jettisoned in the January market after only half a dozen league showings. Back to Metz he went on loan; while Ajax floundered, their striker flourished.

He rattled in a goal every 135 minutes for a team which looked dead and buried before his arrival, kept them from going straight down and, though they did eventually get relegated through a playoff, he netted there, too. A total of 13 strikes in a half-season highlight his ability, and the scale of Ajax’s misjudgement - and must send him off with the Georgian national team in tremendous form and confidence.

Which brings us back to Kvaratskhelia.

He is, unquestionably, the attacking force who most will fear in this side, a ball-carrier with outrageous close control, great aggression and pace, a cannon shot from range and the single-mindedness to believe he’s the one who will swing the game his team’s way.

“Kvaradona”, as he has been known after another Napoli great, has 15 goals in 30 caps, scored against Spain during the qualifiers and is the squad’s only member to have had significant Champions League exposure this season. He literally plays in a diffent league to his teammates.

But with that comes greater regard from defenders, a specific matching-up plan from coaches, even doubling-up on him during moments in matches.

And, in turn, the need for others to step up and have an impact - and exploit the space left by defenders focusing a little too much on one player in another area of the pitch.

Mikautadze must become that player for Georgia, and has the capacity to be it.

Despite playing a different role, he has similarities to his compatriot: great willingness to run with the ball at his feet, a penchant for shooting on sight, capacity to aim for goal off either foot and, most importantly, double figures on the international scene.

Mikautadze and Kvaratskhelia are the only two in the squad to have passed that milestone; one more for the former and he’ll be alone as his comparatively young nation’s ninth-highest scorer of all time. That said, context is needed: four of his ten came against Thailand in an 8-0 rout; three more were against Cyprus or Gibraltar. He hasn’t yet had the games, or the impact, against the very best.

Even so, his tenth came pre-Euros against Montenegro, more akin to the calibre of 75th-ranked Georgia themselves; Montenegro are ranked 70th by Fifa, with group opponents Turkey 40th, Czech Republic 36th, Portugal sixth.

If Georgia are to cause a big upset, Mikautadze almost certainly has to play his part in that. And if he does so, everybody will know his name, just as much as Khvicha Kvaratskhelia’s.