As Kvicha Kvaratskhelia skipped through yet another lily-livered Liverpool challenge during Napoli’s stunning 4-1 Champions League triumph on Wednesday night, Gary Lineker quipped that the so-called ‘Georgian Messi’ is ‘as difficult to play against as it is to spell his name correctly’.
Fortunately, your correspondent has had plenty of practice.
Kvaratskhelia, during the summer of 2021, was linked with what almost every club in the Premier League at one point or another. His exhilarating performances on the left-hand side of the Rubin Kazan frontline earning the winger admirers on all corners of the continent.
Tottenham Hotspur, according to Kvaratskhelia’s agent, wanted the 21-year-old on loan; Fabio Paratici a long-time admirer of a player he also tried to sign at Juventus.
Kvaratskhelia himself, meanwhile, confirmed talks with Leeds United on the back of an outstanding breakthrough campaign on Russian soil.
“Negotiations with Leeds? Yes,” he said some 14 months ago.
Kvicha Kvaratskhelia tears Liverpool apart in the Champions League
After yet another scintillating performance in baby-blue – Kvaratskhelia ensuring that no one in Naples is mourning the loss of Lorenzo Insigne – questions will inevitably be asked as to why Luciano Spalletti’s side faced so little competition when they signed arguably the most in-form attacker in Italian football for a cut price £9 million in April.
Perhaps, after a difficult second season at relegated Rubin, the likes of Tottenham and Leeds felt he was a mere flash in the proverbial pan. A one-year wonder, if you will. But, now that he’s announced himself on the biggest stage of all – giving Trent Alexander-Arnold and Joe Gomez the run-around while producing a performance Napoli legend Diego Maradona himself would have been proud of – Kvaratskhelia is proving beyond all reasonable doubt that his class is very much permanent.
Form, as they say, is merly fleeting.
‘Kvaradona’
“Kvaratskhelia? Many still don’t know him. But he’s probably the best player in Italy right now,” Rafael Benitez told The Times earlier this week.
Make no mistake; Kvaratskhelia won’t be a relative unknown for much longer.
“He knows how to use both feet. He knows how to create. And he knows how to finish,” Benitez adds of a man compared to Mo Salah by Fabio Capello. “He wants to leave his mark in every game he plays.”
“He can soon aspire to a club like Real Madrid,” former Russia international Igor Kolyvanov tells Sport24. “The Napoli fans are already in love with him.
“He is a simply fantastic player. Do they already call him ‘Kvaradona’? Maradona was unique, Kvara is far away from him. He just has to continue with the same spirit. Then, in the future, we will see where he can go.”
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