The Georgian national football team lost 4-1 to the Spanish national team in the round of 16 of the European Championship, thus ending their participation in the tournament. The match took place in Cologne, Germany.
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In the 18th minute of the match, Spanish defender Robin Le Normand accidentally put the ball into his own goal, making the score 1-0 in favor of Georgia. In the 39th minute, Rodri scored for Spain, ending the first half at 1-1. The first Spanish goal was controversial, but the referee did not consider it offside. In the second half, goals were scored by Fabián Ruiz (51st minute), Nico Williams (75th minute), and Dani Olmo (83rd minute).
"When the goal was scored, we felt we could have a chance because we felt we had a chance before the game," said Georgia head coach Willy Sagnol. "If we had been up 1-0 in the first half, we might have had a little more energy in the second half. Then a very important player [Kiteishvili] got injured. We lost a lot in 20 seconds. All in all, Spain deserved to win; it's not debatable."
As Willy Sagnol says, he is happy and proud of what the national team has achieved in recent days and weeks.
"Sometimes you have to take a step back and look at what you've done. The development of the team over the past year has been fantastic. I am very proud of it.
This is the end of the journey, but I'm sure the next one will be very interesting. I'm not saying we're disappointed, but we feel a little sad because we lost. However, in a few days, we will realize exactly what we have done, and I think happiness will return very quickly," said Sagnol.
"It was an amazing adventure for us. We are very proud of what we have achieved. Today we didn't get the result we wanted, but in the end, we are very satisfied with the way we represented our country in our first big tournament," said the captain of the national team, Guram Kashia.
Khvicha Kvaratskhelia, the attacking midfielder for the national team and the Italian football club Napoli, positively evaluated the performance at Euro 2024.
"Perhaps we lacked experience, but this is also coming, and we will try to move forward. We have to get to such big tournaments again because we deserve to be where we are today. I have to thank the fans very much. I did not think that so many people would come. Probably, many people did not think that we would leave the group. In this way, by standing together and supporting each other, we will achieve everything."
"We know how many tournaments we have played. We have come this far with great dedication and talent. In the first half, we tried to show our football, play defensively, and then move forward quickly. But something went wrong when our midfielder Kiteishvili got injured, and everything seemed to change. Altunashvili also performed well, but we still missed Otari. We tried to show the same football in the second half, but they have very high-level players.
It's okay; we have to keep moving forward and getting stronger. We have to keep going because the young ones are watching us.
I look forward to the next meeting with great anticipation, so we can come back stronger as a team and individually, and bring more success to Georgia," said Giorgi Kochorashvili, the central midfielder of the national team and the Spanish football club Levante.
The national team goalkeeper, Giorgi Mamardashvili, also spoke about the loss against one of the main favorites of the championship. He mentioned that each player played with dedication.
"In my opinion, we should be satisfied with our appearance at the European Championship because we dedicated this tournament to Georgia, and each player gave their maximum effort. Of course, it's sad that we lost in the round of 16, but we should also be happy about it, as not long ago, we couldn't have imagined reaching this point.
This is not the end. We will come back stronger. I urge the Georgian fans to believe in us; the Georgian national team will definitely make them happy in the future," said Mamardashvili, who is also the goalkeeper of the Spanish football club Valencia. In the four matches played at Euro 2024, he made 29 saves and conceded 8 goals.
The Georgian national team participated in the European Championship for the first time. In Group F, they lost 3-1 against Turkey, drew 1-1 with the Czech Republic, and won 2-0 against Portugal, advancing to the round of 16 with four points.
