Khvicha Kvaratskhelia, PSG’s Georgian artist whose football skills saved his father’s life

Sports

add

As a small boy, Khvicha Kvaratskhelia would sit and wait for the apples to grow.

Summers were spent in Tsalenjikha, his family’s hometown, cradled by Georgia’s Caucasus mountains. Between their house and the river was a green swathe, capped at one end by a wide iron gate. It was a perfect football pitch — but for one feature.

Since anybody recalled, the gate had been topped with decorative ornaments. Kvaratskehlia’s father, Badri, a professional player himself, had countless footballs burst by its sharp metal. Remembering how he wept with every puncture, thirty years later he warned Khvicha, his second son.

Soon after, hearing the thump of ball on metal gate, Badri stepped outside to check if his message had been heeded. But something looked different.

Now, each spike was crowned by an apple. If a shot hit it? The ball would rebound harmlessly away. Each following June, Kvaratskhelia would repeat the ritual, plucking the early growers from the tree. He got through fewer balls than his father.

A young Kvaratskhelia playing for the Dinamo academy (Credit: Kvaratskhelia family)

Badri, however, had a new problem: “There would never be grass in the yard; because all day, all evening, Khvicha played.”

Perhaps his son’s ingenuity was to be expected. Regional identity is important in Georgia — though he was mainly raised in the country’s capital, Tbilisi, Kvaratskhelia’s family are Mingrelian, an ethnic group from the country’s west.

“People from Samegrelo are smart people,” says Badri. “Very smart people, and very creative. We are mountainous people and we behave like it. If we shake your hand, it is done — no signature needed. This is how you need to understand Khvicha — this is the culture in which he was cultivated.”

Kvaratskhelia (right) with his brothers (Credit: Kvaratskhelia family)

And though Tsalenjikha has a population of just 25,000, its inhabitants have had an outsized influence on Georgian history. The elegiac Terenti Graneli was the nation’s most significant poet for 800 years. Meliton Kantaria was the soldier who flew the Soviet flag over the Reichstag in 1945

But before appearing for Paris Saint-Germain in the Champions League final, the fame of a 24-year-old winger may have eclipsed them all.

In the build-up to Europe’s biggest game, The Athletic travelled to Tbilisi to discover how the remote footballing outpost of Georgia made Kvaratskhelia — including the concrete secrets of his dribbling, a lifeline at Dinamo Tbilisi’s academy, and battered copies of Agatha Christie.

There is a homemade VHS tape in Kvaratskhelia’s home in Tbilisi, made by his mother Maka. With Badri often away for his career — he played in Azerbaijan for several years, even winning three caps for the national team — Maka wanted her family to stay connected.

The cassette shows Badri playing for Azerbaijani club FK Shamkir in Champions League qualifying against Latvian side Skonto FC, where he scored a hat-trick. Kvaratskhelia would practise his father’s free kicks, over and over again.

Ten years later, he repaid his father for the inspiration.

While coaching in Azerbaijan, with Kvaratskhelia taking his first steps in professional football, Badri became dangerously ill. Doctors told him he needed to have emergency heart surgery but the family could not afford it.

Age 18, Kvaratskhelia did not want to leave Georgia. But he quickly realised he had to, joining Lokomotiv Moscow from Rustavi on loan. His first salary, on increased terms, was enough to pay for the surgery — and save his father’s life.

“It wasn’t even a question to him,” says Badri. “He gave us his entire first paycheck.”

Kvaratskhelia’s parents, Badri and Maka, in Tbilisi (Credit: Jacob Whitehead)

Badri will be at the Champions League final against Inter Milan. At moments of high emotion, for his own heart’s sake, he has to retreat into the family’s box. He was there, however, for Kvaratskhelia’s greatest moment since signing for PSG in January — his goal against Aston Villa in the quarter-final.

At his quickest, Kvaratskhelia does not run but flows, changing direction like a stream through rapids. Villa centre-back Axel Disasi was taken underwater, foundering and falling. His shot was a knife thumping a message into the wall — this PSG side is a whole new force with Kvaratskhelia as its apex.

There’s no stopping Kvaratskhelia in that position 💨

What a goal 👏

📺 @tntsports & @discoveryplusUK pic.twitter.com/DclFlVijYf

— Football on TNT Sports (@footballontnt) April 9, 2025

His parents had seen it before.

“Our first son is five years older,” says Maka. “And Khvicha wanted to be with his oldest brother all the time. But when he was five years old, we noticed the way he used to chase him. Khvicha would go straight, at such speed, and could turn 90 degrees, without changing pace.”

“Once, Khvicha was given a kimono as a present, and told to try judo,” remembers Badri. “It’s such a quick sport — if you hesitate for a second, you’re on the floor. The coach saw his reflexes, and straight away identified him as a sportsman.”

And at Champions League level, dribbling is a form of combat. His first coaches marvelled at the rate of his quick, light touches, which at times look more like fencing than football. It is said that the great technicians fall in love with the ball first, the sport second. Kvaratskhelia was no different.

Kvaratskhelia as a baby with his mother Maka (Credit: Kvaratskhelia family)

“When he started walking, he would walk with the ball,” says Maka. “When he went to sleep, he would sleep with the ball. There were lots of small concrete pitches in our neighbourhood. In the evenings, with Badri away, I’d search for him, looking in every playground, until I’d find him hundreds of metres away.

“But you know, when he played as a little boy, he never played for fun. If he ever lost the ball, he sprinted back to defend the net, to help the goalie. I think that was why I knew he’d be OK when he moved to Napoli.”

It was in Italy, where he moved in 2022, that Kvaratskhelia’s dribbling earned a continental reputation. Napoli’s fans adored the straight-backed youngster, brow furrowed in concentration, who took smooth, delicate touches as if stroking a violin. First he was Kvaradona, then he was Kvaravaggio. His art was made amidst Tbilisi’s brutalism.

Kvaratskhelia on the move for Napoli (Photo: MB Media/Getty Images)

“These pitches were small, you’re surrounded by six or seven players,” says Badri. “So it’s very hard to manoeuvre, you have to dribble like that. And then, if you’re playing on the asphalt, you need to take care of yourself. You stay so upright because you’ll get injured if you go down.”

Tbilisi is a city of dappled light. Green shoots sprout from cracked concrete; its beauty comes from its untamed edges. Kvaratskhelia’s face is emblazoned on billboards leading towards Sameba, the country’s largest and most famous cathedral. They advertise Georgian water, now a sponsor of PSG. For a country in the midst of political strife, he is something the population can rally behind.

The backstreets of Tbilisi, where Kvaratskhelia grew up playing football (Credit: Jacob Whitehead)

Kvaratskhelia was spotted by Dinamo Tbilisi chief scout Temur Ugrekhelidze as a 10-year-old, playing at a tournament for neighbourhood children. Ugrekhelidze is the first man on many people’s journey — from incoming Liverpool goalkeeper Giorgi Mamardashvili, to Saint-Etienne forward Zuriko Davitashvili, to Watford midfielder Giorgi Chakvetadze, all current internationals. Sitting in his office at Dinamo’s academy, he pulls his cap over his eyes at the memory of Kvaratskhelia.

“It was his courage,” he recollects. “That was what stood out the most. Whenever he dribbled, he dribbled forward. There are lots of players who will try that once, lose the ball, and be afraid to do it again. But even if he lost the ball five times, he’d try to take his player on, and go ahead.”

Temur Ugrekhelidze at Dinamo’s training ground (Credit: Jacob Whitehead)

Kvaratskhelia’s first day at Dinamo came on the day that the club opened their new academy. Cristiano Ronaldo travelled from Real Madrid for the unveiling.

Years later, a photo from that day emerged after Georgia beat Portugal at last summer’s European Championship — a pre-teen Kvaratskhelia, craning to be seen, posing alongside his hero.

In 2013, a picture was taken of Cristiano Ronaldo visiting the Dinamo Tbilisi Academy in Georgia.

This evening, 1⃣1⃣ of those players from the academy could play against Cristiano Ronaldo at Euro 2024, which includes Khvicha Kvaratskhelia.

What a story ❤️️ pic.twitter.com/eGoRNlVHvF

— Football on TNT Sports (@footballontnt) June 26, 2024

As Georgia’s players sprinted to their fans after that 2-0 win, the most famous in the nation’s history, Kvaratskhelia ran to commiserate with his hero.

“He told him: ‘I’m really sorry that we beat you,’” says Maka. “He wanted to check that everything was OK, and there was no bad blood between them. And Ronaldo said: ‘Good luck, I support you.’ Later, Ronaldo took himself into the Georgia changing room to give Khvicha his shirt.”

Tbilisi is lined with billboards of Kvaratskhelia (Credit: Jacob Whitehead)

But back in the Dinamo academy, another player was the star.

“Kvara wasn’t our strongest player in that period,” explains academy director Levan Gvantseladze. “Zuriko Davitashvili was much better. Kvara always had these skills, but he was thin and underdeveloped, and because of that he occasionally struggled.

“We played some children in his team one year up — they were 2001 players who were playing with the 2000s. But Khvicha only ever played in his own age group, never the one above.”

Dinamo academy director Levan Gvantseladze in his office (Credit: Jacob Whitehead)

Instead, compared to his brothers, Kvaratskhelia grew slowly — his family believe that is one reason why he has avoided muscle injuries in his career, with his body getting gradually used to his frame.

He played as an orthodox right winger through the age groups, rather than his now customary left. With Dinamo’s small-sided games lacking full-backs, the wide players were expected to cover back as well, developing their work rate. Gvantseladze thinks this helped develop his ability to cut inside off the left, as well as his defensive suitability for Luis Enrique’s system at PSG.

“Another thing that actually helps him now is that we were the strongest team in Georgia,” Gvantseladze adds. “So the opponents would drop deep, and the spaces in the final third would be very small. So the way you can beat that is with your creativity and aggressiveness, your one-on-one dribbling skills — and that carries through to PSG today.”

Kvaratskhelia (lying down on the right) at the Dinamo academy (Credit: Temur Ugrekhelidze)

“There was another time, when he was a kid, that he had a fever, a very bad virus,” says Badri. “He couldn’t train for a month. But you know, for 14-year-old kids, that’s horrible. So they played against their biggest rival, Saburtalo, and he insisted on being on the bench. At the end of the first half, the Dinamo keeper got sent off. Then Khvicha came on, and bang: 3-0 to Dinamo, and all three goals from Khvicha.”

Dinamo’s coaches were becoming convinced, and normal rules were beginning to be waived.

The Kvaratskhelia family faced problems as Khvicha moved into the middle of his teens. They were struggling financially, with Badri needing to remain in Azerbaijan to find work, and Maka moving temporarily back to Tsalenjikha.

“When I was a kid in Georgia, my life was a little bit difficult,” Kvaratskhelia wrote of this period in The Players’ Tribune last year. “A little bit sometimes. No details here. But not always easy, you understand?”

Kvaratskhelia during his first year at Dinamo’s academy (Credit: Dinamo Tbilisi)

Maka used to give him small amounts of money to look after himself at tournaments. “But he’d never spend it!” she remembers. “He’d keep it, come back, and spend it on his brothers, or his friends, or take somebody else who was poor to eat at McDonalds. He would always share.”

Amid fears of how Kvaratskhelia would cope with the difficulties, his long-time youth coach, Vladimer Kakashvili, made a proposal.

“I was seeing a lot of problems in his life,” says Kakashvili, known to everybody as Lado. “There was a rule that only players based outside Tbilisi could live and train at the academy full-time. So I convinced (academy director) Levan (Gvantseladze) to accommodate him. And the schedule really helped him.”

“The guys that live here train twice a day” explains Gvantseladze, from his office, one floor underneath the academy lodgings. “They do individual training at 7am, then join up with the team later in the afternoon. He could just wake up, train, and go to school. It made things comfortable, and saved a lot of time.”

The academy accommodation at Dinamo Tbilisi (Credit: Jacob Whitehead)

Each room is simple, with two single beds, two desks, and two wardrobes. Living in Kvaratskhelia’s old quarters is second-team player Raul Baratelia, also a winger, and also from Samegrelo.

“It seemed a bit impossible before Kvara,” he says. “We didn’t have a single player in the top five leagues in Europe. But now he’s opened the doors for everyone. It’s possible for Georgians to play at such a high level in the Champions League — and maybe even win it.”

Nearby, Julieta Pipia is listening, the “house mother” for the players at the training ground.

“We had a special connection, because back then, Khvicha was the only other person from Samegrelo,” she says. “So we’d speak to each other in Mingrelian and he’d ask for our food. He was always craving elarji (a thick, cheese-based porridge).”

Julieta Pipia and Raul Baratelia outside the Dinamo Tbilisi academy (Credit: Jacob Whitehead)

In 2016, Dinamo’s academy hosted the first Vitali Daraselia Cup — an international tournament for under-16 sides. Kvaratskhelia, then an under-15, was not slated to take part.

“At the last minute, one of the teams who were set to take part pulled out,” remembers Gvantseladze. “It was far too late for us to make any major changes. That 2000 team had some of the more developed 2001 players already, but we decided to make a team of the rest of that year group — a Dinamo ‘B team’.

Kvaratskhelia (front row, far right) during his later years at the Dinamo academy (Credit: Dinamo Tbilisi)

“It was Khvicha’s first real test against clubs from other countries — a year older than him as well — and he played so well that clubs from all over the world left with his name on their lips.”

“He was the revelation of the tournament,” says Lado.

Eight hundred years after Shota Rustaveli wrote The Knight in the Panther’s Skin, the definitive work of Georgian literature, the country had discovered a new chivalric hero. Off the pitch, Kvaratskhelia was generous, obsessive over his self-improvement, and unfailingly polite. On it, he prowled with aggression.

“He’s exactly like that character,” says Ugrekhelidze. “I can’t recall a single incident where he was in trouble. But it’s that mix of traits which makes him such a huge player — his courage, his physicality, his technical ability.”

Kvaratskhelia would soon have more to share with his family. Within a year of his Vitali Daraselia Cup breakthrough, the slender winger made his Dinamo debut.

“Understand that a rose without thorns has never been plucked,” wrote Rustaveli.

“Did you know that Naples is like Georgia?” explains Badri, leaning back in his chair. “We are both emotional people. Very emotional. We adore football. It’s not part of life — it’s our life.”

It was appropriate, then, that Kvaratskhelia’s breakthrough came at Napoli under Luciano Spalletti. With 12 goals and 13 assists, he was the skeleton key that unlocked the club’s first Scudetto in 33 years.

After Napoli’s subsequent Serie A win this month, where he spent the first half of the season, Kvaratskhelia could still earn an unprecedented treble after moving to PSG — the Scudetto, the Ligue 1 title, and the Champions League.

“Khvicha had so much interest when he was leaving Dinamo Batumi,” says Badri. “But when Napoli came in… I told him, ‘Don’t worry about bonuses, don’t think about the salary. You’ll be playing where Maradona played, sharing the same stadium, changing in the same dressing room. Just sign the contract — go!’”

But unlike his father’s hero, Kvaradona is much more shy and insular. His family are back in Georgia — his girlfriend, a medical student, and his baby son.

Once, after a game against Liverpool in September 2022, Badri asked his son to get him Virgil van Dijk’s shirt.

“He came up after the game and told me that he was too ashamed to ask for the jersey,” Badri remembers. “It was only when they played the away leg in Liverpool that Virgil actually called him over himself, and asked if they can trade.”

Kvaratskhelia in the first game against Liverpool in 2022 when he was “ashamed” to ask for Van Dijk’s shirt (Photo: Carlo Hermann/DeFodi Images via Getty Images)

“Honestly, he has no life outside of football,” says Maka, before describing one exception. On team trips, Kvaratskhelia can often be found reading paperbacks, face screwed in concentration like he’s playing — reading detective fiction. Agatha Christie is his favourite.

The escapism makes sense. There is a weight to his existence — the face of a nation’s team, the creative burden of one of football’s richest clubs.

“He doesn’t talk about the pressure to us,” says Maka. “He doesn’t want us to get nervous. Badri has had two surgeries, and Khvicha know he’s an emotional person. So if he talks to him, he’ll worry.”

The Boris Paichadze Dinamo Arena, Georgia’s national stadium (Credit: Jacob Whitehead)

Sometimes, Maka herself worries that Kvaratskhelia does not enjoy his successes enough. After the semi-final, with PSG’s players jumping on the pitch, she noticed her son seemed strangely muted compared to his teammates.

“I wanted him to celebrate more,” she says. “And so I asked him: ‘Why didn’t you celebrate like your teammates?’ And he replied: ‘Mother, there is nothing to celebrate yet. We still have a final to play.’”

The under-16s are warming up on the far pitch at Dinamo Tbilisi’s academy. Seventy-four per cent of Georgia’s senior national team were produced here — along with 60 per cent of the under-21s, and 67 per cent of the under-19s.

Since Georgia’s success at last summer’s Euros, built on Kvaratskhelia and Dinamo’s shoulders, applications to join the academy have trebled.

The Dinamo Tbilisi academy (Credit: Jacob Whitehead)

And the winger’s trademark low socks? That’s not a Kvaratskhelia thing — but a Dinamo one. Every player in the under-16s has them rolled round their ankles, and when the senior squad take the field against Saburtalo later that day, similarly attired, the contrast to their opponents is striking.

But even amid a forest of low socks, one players bears more of a resemblance to Dinamo’s star graduate than others. Tornike Kvaratskhelia is 15, a tall, slender winger like his brother. Like Khvicha, he was brought to Dinamo by Ugrekhelidze. Unlike his brother, he is playing one age group up in the academy.

“Khvicha was faster, but Tornike takes more time to think and make his decisions,” says Badri.

Tornike Kvaratskhelia warming up before a session (Credit: Jacob Whitehead)

“He’s also slim and needs to develop physically,” says Ugrekhelidze. “But their character is the same. Recently, we lost the final of a tournament, and he cried in my arms. I did the same with his brother, eight years before.”

Earlier this month, Tornike won player of the tournament while playing for Georgia Under-15s in the UEFA Development Cup, starring in games against Armenia, Uzbekistan and Latvia. There is genuine excitement about his progress.

Lado Kakashvili, outside his coaches’ office, at Dinamo Tbilisi’s training ground (Credit: Jacob Whitehead)

Back at Dinamo’s main training ground, Lado hopes to use him in the first team soon. There are already young players involved, such as striker Vakhtang Salia, who will join Newcastle United in the summer, and left-back Saba Kharebashvili, who is the subject of interest from Liverpool and Feyenoord.

But thoughts quickly turn to his favourite graduate, the teenage boy he housed in the academy. The manager recalls a conversation he had with Kvaratskhelia after the Champions League semi-final.

“He made me a promise,” he says. “If he wins, he’s going to bring the cup back here to Tbilisi. We’ll sit in my office, and drink Georgian wine from the trophy.”

Illustration: Kelsea Petersen/The Athletic; Eurasia Sport Images/Getty Images

This news was originally published on this post .

Share on

email

Previous

trending_flat

Matheus Cunha by those who knew him growing up: ‘He turned from water into wine’

Sports

Next

trending_flat

How David Moyes masterminded Everton’s turnaround: ‘Relentless’ planning and a ‘hidden magic’

Sports