Khvicha Kvaratskhelia, the Georgian winger who brought Naples to his feet, transferred to PSG

Ligue 1 has one more Georgian footballer in its small diaspora. The most prestigious of them joins his compatriots Zuriko Davitashvili and Georges Mikautadze, enemy brothers from Saint-Etienne and Lyon. At the age of 23, Khvicha Kvaratskhelia was transferred, Friday January 17, at Paris Saint-Germain. PSG announced the news at 10:15 p.m. on social networks. The SSC Naples star has signed a contract with the capital club until June 2029. According to The Teamthe amount of the transaction would be around 70 million euros, excluding bonuses.

Thursday evening, in a long video, “very sentimental”published on his Instagram account, the Georgian did not skimp “on the violins” to say goodbye to the Neapolitan people. We saw him, with his wife, walking one last time, in the rain, on the lawn of the Diego-Armando-Maradona stadium. He also took a last look at the Bay of Naples and touched for a long time the sculpted ball placed on the statue of the Argentine idol, his most glorious predecessor. “It’s hard, but it’s time to say goodbye. I wish you success for this city, this people, the scudettoand the title of champion of Italy »he said.

Nicknamed “Kvaradona” in the southern Italian city, which has made him the successor to Argentine icon Diego Maradona since he brought back the scudetto (Italian champion title) at “Napoli” in 2023, the neo-Parisian is a talented attacker, who plays on the left wing, from where he knows how to score and distribute assists. All this with both feet since, like his new partner on the other wing of PSG, Ousmane Dembélé, he is ambidextrous.

A talented striker

During the 2022-2023 season, that of his arrival in Italy and the first Neapolitan coronation since 1990 and the Maradona era, the Georgian striker scored 12 goals and offered 13 assists to his partners. Before being – logically – elected best player in Serie A, the Italian championship. The same year, he was named best young player in the Champions League.

After two seasons at the foot of Vesuvius, Khvicha Kvaratskhelia wanted to go elsewhere. In the summer of 2024, he was already dreaming of PSG. « [Il] asked to leave the club »confirmed his coach, Antonio Conte, Saturday January 11, at a press conference. He reported « [sa] big disappointment » at the thought of losing “an important player” that he had been trying, for six months, to “make you feel at the center of the project” Neapolitan.

Trained at Dinamo Tbilisi, like his compatriot Davitashvili – who scored a superb free kick against PSG on Sunday January 12 – this talented striker participated greatly in his selection's great first international campaign during Euro 2024. Front in Cristiano Ronaldo's Portugal, during the third decisive match of the first round, “Kvara” scored the first goal of a victory (2-0) which propelled Georgia into the round of 16. In Germany, she was then eliminated by the future Spanish European champions (1-4).

Worthy heir in the game of “Soviet Brazil”

An international since the age of 18, in 2019, Khvicha Kvaratskhelia embodies the revival of Georgian football, brilliant during the Soviet era but in decline for decades. Until a few years ago, wrestlers, judokas and rugby players – who spread throughout French professional rugby – were the only ones to make the country's colors shine on an international scale.

It is also in Russia – at Lokomotiv Moscow, then at Rubin Kazan – that the now ex-Neapolitan went into exile, between 2019 and 2022, to reach a milestone. During the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the winger rushed back to his native country, spending three months on the Black Sea shore at Dinamo Batumi.

Since Georgia's independence, the phenomenon's founding club, Dinamo Tbilisi, has won nineteen league titles. But, despite a 55,000-seat stadium and the training of excellent players, the prosperous years of the Soviet period seem distant. In 1964 and 1978, the Georgian team became one of three clubs from socialist republics other than those of Russia – with Ararat Yerevan for Armenia and Dinamo Minsk for Belarus – to win the championship of USSR.

In 1981, Tbilisi even won a European Cup, the now-defunct Cup Winners' Cup. “In the West, we were taken for a classic Soviet team, like the Moscow clubs. We surprised everyone because we played differently. We were nicknamed “Soviet Brazil” »remembered the club's former goalkeeper, Otar Gabelia, met by The Monde in 2018, on the sidelines of the World Cup in Russia. With his nickname in homage to the Argentinian football genius, “Kvaradona” has become a worthy heir of this virtuoso tradition of Caucasian football, with South American accents. If he maintains his level in Paris, the public at the Parc des Princes should quickly be won over by his arabesques.