Greece huffed and they puffed, but they could not bring down the house that Georgia built.
The little transcontinental nation, with their attack led by the sensational Khvicha Kvaratskhelia, will now be playing at the 2024 UEFA European Championships in June after surviving the onslaught from their much more established counterparts.
Their playoff meeting was settled on penalties after both teams failed to find a way past each other in 120 minutes of football.
Home substitute Nika Kvekveskiri scored the winning penalty, with a shot that narrowly avoided the dive of Greece goalkeeper Odysseas Vlachodimos.
That action saw the nation’s football fans rush onto the pitch to celebrate with their players. It was a beautiful moment for the nation who only played their first football match in 1990, 34 years ago. This also marked their first success to qualify for a major tournament (FIFA World Cup, Olympics and Euros) in 15 tries.
They will now join Portugal, Turkey and Czechia in Group F at the Euros in Germany come June 2024.
Poland and Ukraine also secured the final two spots via the playoffs and will join Groups D and E respectively.
Below are the completed groups following the qualification of Georgia for Euro 2024.
Group A: Germany, Scotland, Hungary, Switzerland
Group B: Spain, Croatia, Italy, Albania
Group C: Slovenia, Denmark, Serbia, England
Group D: Poland, Netherlands, Austria, France
Group E: Belgium, Slovakia, Romania, Ukraine
Group F: Portugal, Turkey, Georgia, Czechia
Early predictions
Former players, fans and pundits have begun to make predictions on teams who will go all the way to the final and possibly end up as the winners of the tournament.
Philipp Lahm, whose country Germany is hosting the upcoming edition, named France as his winner, saying, “France [are the favourites]. Quite simply because they have, I’d say, 40 players that are very talented.”
“They have a very balanced group and can easily make changes, bring players off the bench that could legitimately start, but what is the most important is to be a team on the pitch.”
Georgia may have made history but having no past performance to serve as a benchmark, predicting how they will fare is hard among fans.
The most common names being mentioned are Italy, France, England and Germany.
The Euro 2024 tournament will begin on Friday, 14 June at the Allianz Arena in Munich and conclude on Sunday, 14 July at the Olympiastadion in Berlin.
