In Georgia, Willy Sagnol became a living god

Since Willy Sagnol helped qualify Georgia for their first ever major international tournament, Euro 2024, he has become a hero at home, along with stars Khvicha Kvaratskhelia and Georges Mikautadze. “A hero? No not at all. I just did my job,” he said during a conference of coaches organized by UEFA.

But if he benefited from the in-depth work of the Georgian Football Federation (GFF) and a great generation of players, around “Kvara”, the star of Napoli, and Mikautadze, the best player of FC Metz, Sagnol has indeed transformed his team in three years.

The 2006 world vice-champion played it modest, but his emotion exploded when Georgia won their play-off against Greece (0-0, 4-2 tab). Eight days after celebrating his 47th birthday, he was in tears for this historic qualification.

“The two or three weeks following the qualification, we (…) asked ourselves: ‘Is this true what is happening to us? Did we really manage to qualify for a major competition?,” Sagnol told the FIFA website.

However, nothing seemed destined for the Stéphanois with 58 caps for the French team to sit on the Georgia bench.

He had not coached for five years, after having coached the U20s then the French Espoirs, the Girondins de Bordeaux, and having held an assistant position at Bayern Munich, where he managed a match as an interim after the ouster of Carlo Ancelotti in fall 2017.

“There was a real cut, but it was voluntary,” explains Sagnol. Sometimes you have family imperatives and the priorities are no longer football.

During confinement, “I told myself that I wanted to be both a coach and happy,” he remembers. “I told myself that if a project came along that was out of the ordinary, that might be the one I should look at with the most attention,” he adds.

“I have nothing in common with Georgia,” he admits. When I learned they wanted me, I said to myself: ‘But why Georgia?’ I didn’t know anything about it.”

But the two main leaders of the Georgian federation knew the qualities, and in particular the strong character, of a player faced when he played for Bayern Munich (2000-2008). Levan Kobiashvili, the president, who played for Schalke 04, and vice-president Aleksandr Iashvili, who played for Freiburg, entrusted him with their national team in February 2021.

The beginnings are difficult, seven defeats in nine matches, but they let Sagnol work, and then the machine gets going.

The French technician explains having “rejuvenated the workforce”, taking advantage of a long-term policy put in place by the GFF, “the infrastructures, the academies”, he explains. Before, “there weren’t even stadiums for kids to play.”

With Kvaratskhelia, Mikautadze, Budu Zivzivadze – double scorer against Luxembourg (2-0) in the play-off semi-finals – or Valencia goalkeeper Giorgi Mamardashvili, Sagnol has some good players to succeed in this first tournament.

The 2006 World Cup finalist also chose to live seven months a year in Georgia. “I really wanted to spend a lot of time there, because in my opinion, the local culture has a real impact on the way a national team plays, it was important to understand it.”

“The idea will already be to give a good image of Georgian football (…) and to glean a few more percentages of confidence and more experience,” concludes Sagnol.