Spain, the only Eurocup team that has won its three group stage matches – against Croatia, Italy and Albania – will face Georgia in the round of 16, classified as the best third in group F. The match, which La Roja arrives as a favorite and after a great start to the tournament, it will be played on Sunday, June 30 at 9:00 p.m. in Cologne. The Eastern European country team added four points in this first round of the championship. First they lost against Turkey (3-1), then they tied against the Czech Republic (1-1) and this afternoon they surprised Portugal (2-0), which was already classified as first in the group and gave many of their starters a rest. usual.
Georgia—74th in the ranking FIFA — has made it to the last 16 in its first participation in a European Championship since the country gained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. Until then it had never qualified for the continental tournament, and has never been to a World Cup. The team from the eastern European country was part of Spain’s group in the qualifying phase for the Euros. In both matches, La Roja defeated its opponent on Sunday with great superiority.
In the first match, played in September last year in Tbilisi, Luis de la Fuente’s team had a feast (1-7) with a fantastic display in which Morata scored a hat trick and Lamine Yamal debuted at just 16 years old and 57 days, the youngest in history to play for La Roja. Two months later, in the second leg, Spain won again (3-1), but the match left the mark of Gavi’s serious injury. The Barcelona midfielder missed the rest of the season after breaking the anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee and also suffering damage to the external meniscus. In total, Spain and Georgia have faced each other seven times, with six victories for La Roja and only one defeat (19 goals for and four against).
Qualifying for the round of 16 is a success for Georgia, a team whose big stars are Giorgi Mamardashvili (23 years old), Valencia’s goalkeeper, and above all Khvicha Kvaratskhelia (23), Napoli’s winger. He is the great football icon of the country, who saw how the number of children who began kicking the ball in schools almost doubled in recent years, in which Kvaratskhelia had spectacular performances both with his team – with which he won the Serie A in 2023, 33 years after the last Shield that Maradona raised—as with his team.
The man who has led the Georgian side to their first European Championship is Willy Sagnol, a legend of the French national team and Bayern Munich. He signed in February 2021 after having been Carlo Ancelotti’s assistant at the Bavarian side and having previously managed Girondins Bordeaux for almost two seasons. “Whether we will qualify or not? I think it would be a mistake to talk about it now and it would only add pressure to the players (…), but the potential is there,” warned Sagnol ahead of the Euro qualifiers.
The Eastern European team will be the most difficult opponent for Spain during the qualifiers. Four of the big favourites – Germany, France, Portugal and La Roja itself – are on the same side of the draw. In the quarter-finals, the team led by Luis de la Fuente can already face the German team – they face Denmark in the round of 16 – on July 5 in Stuttgart, while the logical thing would be for the semi-finals to be against France – the big favourite faces Belgium – or Portugal on the 9th.
On the other side of the table are England – which came to the Euro Cup as one of the biggest candidates to win the title and which has left many doubts in this first phase – and Italy – the current champion -, which Spain has already defeated. in the group stage in a formidable choral performance. La Roja would only face one of them in the final, which will be held on July 14 in Berlin at 9:00 p.m.
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