By Felix Light
TBILISI (Reuters) – Thousands of jubilant Georgia fans packed into the central square of the country’s capital Tbilisi on Tuesday to welcome the national soccer team home from Euro 2024 after a thrilling campaign on their major tournament debut.
The Georgia players won Europe-wide praise for a series of thrilling performances, including a shock 2-0 victory over Cristiano Ronaldo’s Portugal, before going out to Spain 4-1 in the round of 16 on Sunday.
Fan Giorgi Bendeliani had brought his young daughter in his arms to the late night celebration. “The nation is full of joy. I’m really glad too, as an ordinary Georgian citizen,” he said.
The players drove through Tbilisi in an open-top bus to cheers and applause before mounting a stage alongside the country’s president and prime minister in front of thousands in Tbilisi’s Freedom Square.
President Salome Zourabichvili, who attended all four of the country’s matches in Germany, presented each player with the Order of Honour, one of Georgia’s highest civilian awards.
Zourabichvili said to cheers from the crowd: “Today is a miracle. This is the kind of Georgia I want.”
During a speech pledging continued government support for the national team, Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze was booed by some attendees in a reminder of Georgia’s bitter domestic politics that had been temporarily eclipsed by the tournament.
Georgia’s brief but high-octane Euros campaign electrified the South Caucasus nation of 3.7 million.
Georgian players were well represented in Soviet Union national sides before 1991, but the country had not qualified for a major tournament since independence from Moscow that year.
Now, after a successful Euros debut, led by midfielder Khvicha Kvaratskhelia and striker Georges Mikautadze, one of the tournament’s top scorers so far, many Georgians now hope their small country has put itself on the soccer map for the future.
“We’ve made a real achievement,” said one fan, who gave his name as Nodar. “I think now the victories are going to start. Our football is being reborn and coming to life again.”
(Reporting by Felix Light; Editing by Ken Ferris)
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