The Georgian landed at the Parthenopean club as a stranger and has become one of the sensations in Europe
Andrés Carrasco, who captured him at the age of 10, and Eduardo Docampo, who managed him at Rubin Kazan, recounted the Khvicha in SPORT who later became a star
De Laurentiis announced his signing even without knowing how to pronounce his name, but it was clear to him that he had gone ahead of half of Europe and had signed a player who could be a “bomb”. He has always been an optimistic guy and tremendously one of his own the charismatic president of Napoli, but this time he couldn’t be more right.
The sports director Guintoli convinced him that he had to bet on this very young winger now that he was still ‘disappeared’ in Russian and Georgian football, and so it was. While the Parthenopean city inconsolably mourned the departure of Insigne, his prodigal son, Khvicha Kvaratskhelia (Georgia, 2001) landed in Naples through the back door and almost asking for permission coming from Dinamo Batumi, where he had arrived from Rubin Kazan after the war between Russia and Ukraine. But it hasn’t taken him a season to become the great sensation of Napoli champion of Serie A.
From the first day he has shown himself as he is: unbalancing, cheeky and doing things that had not been seen in the Campania region for a long time. He has played in Italy just as he did in Russia and Georgia. And that is already big words. The exhibitions have been happening and, far from being a coincidence, the Georgian has become an absolute reality. Until today, he ‘named’ a new idol in Naples and a myth in Georgia, where nothing else is talked about.
This is what Andrés Carrasco, the person in charge of setting up the Dinamo Tbilisi Academy and, therefore, recruiting Kvaratskhelia in 2011 when he was only 10 years old, told SPORT: “In Georgia he is more than an idol. Here it is impossible not to follow him. This is very special. A situation like this does not happen every day. No one here, not even his family, could foresee that at the age of 22 he would arrive at Naples and do what you are doing. Not even in Naples they believe it & rdquor ;.
A different story from that of other cracks
At this point and having become a footballer on another level, the question is clear: where did the Khvicha phenomenon come from, why did it go unnoticed by the ‘greats’ until so late, Why don’t they even believe it in Georgia and what would have happened to him if he had made the leap to a more powerful football from the beginning? We will never know the latter, but we can delve into how it got to Naples. Nobody saw it coming. Not even when he broke it in Russia.
His story is very different from that of other cracks on the current scene who decided to pack their bags when they were very young and signed for important teams. Because the Georgian has grown in the always attractive football of his country and in Russia until he was seen ready to make the leap, and because, unlike many other talents, Kvaratskhelia was not always one of those chosen ones.
In fact, in his beginnings in Dinamo Tbilisi’s grassroots football, he was one more. “At that time we had different tests and the coaches were not very clear about it. He wasn’t a particularly gifted technical player. Throughout his career at the Academy he was never one of those four or five chosen, who make a difference. He was a player who was good, with a lot of strength, with a lot of speed, technically correct… But he had never been a determining player like now. Until he was 17 or 18 years old, of course,” says Carrasco, who defines the Khvicha boy as a more hard-working than talented player.
Grew up in the shadow of Russian football
But the job helped foster talent and the Georgian, over the seasons, grew at lightning speed. Supported by a soccer family with a father who had coached him in his first steps, Kvaratskhelia was already beginning to stand out and in what way at a youthful age. There he was already a different player, a differential talent. No one believed in him more than himself.
It was then that Andrés Carrasco himself, already in the ranks of Shakhtar, wanted to sign him for the Ukrainian team and match him with a certain Mudryk. Khvicha did not go to Ukraine, where he might have had a greater media focus, but he packed his bags and went to Russian football. There he would coincide for a few months with another Spanish coach, Eduardo Docampo, second at that time at Rubin Kazan. After going through a difficult season at Lokomotiv Moscow in 18-19, Kvaratskhelia signed for Rubin Kazan in 19-20, a club in decline, with a more tactical than technical squad and that it helped the Georgian to mature in his game.
“The player was easy to see. You didn’t have to be a great scout. He had some qualities and a tremendous projection at 18 years old. When we signed him, we already saw that potential, although perhaps he was less successful in his actions. He needed to understand football a little more & rdquor ;, recalls Docampo to SPORT. And the Georgian worked on that. He stayed training one on one and attacking actions in specific training sessions, but he also learned to be a footballer before juggling.
An artist who learned to establish his game
He did not forget the spectacularity of his game and he knew he was better than the rest, but in Kazan he was forced to add records in defense and take more care of possession of the ball (avoid so many turnovers) and that soon that sometimes made him angry in excess before the entrances of the rivals. He also had a family at Rubin who wanted to keep him away from the media spotlight.
In Russia, unlike his first steps in Georgia, they saw a player who could easily make a difference and it didn’t take long for rumors to come out about a high-profile transfer. However, the more they talked about him, the more calm they gave him.
The president, despite the fact that the club did not have an excess budget, advocated that he stay a couple of years in the team so that it could continue to grow before making the leap, while Eduardo Docampo also recommended that he focus solely and exclusively on growing: ” We told him to value more the moment in which he lived. He would get angry with us and I would laugh because we thought he was going to be a great player and we were especially on top of him. He had to worry more about the project that he was as a player than about the immediacy and rush. He was in a real hurry to get there. I think if he had left Russia soon he would have fallen & rdquor;.
Finally, the war forced Kvaratskhelia to pack up and return to Georgia again, but it would be for a few months. Dinamo Batumi was a perfect springboard to land in Naples. I was already prepared. It had already grown to be something great, although no one expected it to become what it is: the new Partenopean idol. In Campania he has maintained that brilliant dribbling that makes him special, but he has added more weight to his game. He is now one of the stars of the moment, although those who have been close to him know that he still has room for manoeuvre. He always believed. The rest is and will be history.