FILE PHOTO: Soccer Football - Euro 2024 - Round of 16 - Spain v Georgia - Cologne Stadium, Cologne, Germany - June 30, 2024 Georgia's Khvicha Kvaratskhelia reacts after Spain's Fabian Ruiz scores their second goal REUTERS/Thilo Schmuelgen/File Photo
HAMBURG/TBILISI (Reuters) - After their sensational big tournament debut, Euro 2024's lowest-ranked team Georgia were packing their bags with no regrets and only one thought in mind: how to do it all again.
The Georgians were seen in advance by most football pundits as no-hopers making up the numbers in Germany.
Yet guided by canny French coach Willy Sagnol and inspired by tricky-dribbling talisman Khvicha Kvaratskhelia, they shocked opponents with a simple formula of old-school defending and rampaging counter-attacks. "The Crusaders" even beat Cristiano Ronaldo's Portugal en route to the knockouts.
Then in a last-16 defeat to Spain, they gave the watching world a jaw-dropping moment, taking the lead with the only goal their illustrious opponents have let in at these Euros.
"Everyone will want only one thing: to come back," said a proud Sagnol, who had already declared his team the real "winners" of the tournament after the Portugal win.
"We will try our best to come back in a major competition. Playing against the best players, the best teams, in great stadiums, in great atmosphere, and to give the opportunity to a lot of Georgian fans to come here."
All of Georgia's games were thrillers.
In their group opener, they were unlucky not to draw with Turkey, coming so close to an equaliser before succumbing to a last-gasp goal against the run of play in a 3-1 loss. And against the Czech Republic, Saba Lobjanidze should have won it at the death, blazing over to leave the score at 1-1.
As well as on the pitch, Georgia won admiration for their legions of white-and-red clad fans, whose ubiquitous St. George's cross flag was sometimes confused with England's.
The team's magnificent performances brought thousands onto the streets of the capital Tbilisi and eclipsed bitter disputes between a Georgian government that has deepened ties to Russia, and a more pro-Western opposition.
'LOSING IS WINNING'
Usually at loggerheads, President Salome Zourabichvili and Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze even sat together at the stadium in Cologne for the Spain game.
"Sometimes losing is winning!" Zourabichvili said.
"This is history and means that Georgian football has taken one very big step forward," said Kobakhidze.
Despite the hunger for more big game experience, Sagnol said it was premature to talk about the 2026 World Cup qualifiers with Georgia's team and 3.7 million people first entitled to sit back and drink in all that happened in Germany.
Georgians are quietly confident that Euro 2024 will prove no fluke. It followed a three-year project by Sagnol and careful cultivation of the game from grassroots to the national squad by the ambitious Georgian Football Federation.
Qualification for Germany actually came thanks to a stellar run in the 2022/23 UEFA Nations League, where Georgia won their group and have risen to League B.
And whereas in the past Georgia had barely a single starter in a major European league, they now have players dotted around Spain's La Liga, France's Ligue 1 and Italy's Serie A.
"Now it's the end of a journey," said Sagnol. "But I'm sure the next one will also be very exciting."
(Reporting by Andrew Cawthorne and Felix Light; Editing by Alison Williams)
