Last 16: Spain 4 Georgia 1
Spain versus Germany, then. Don’t mind if we do. The tournament hosts and its best team so far will meet in Stuttgart for a place in the semi-final after the selección took 31 shots and scored four goals to ease past Georgia here. Only ease may not be quite the right word. They were impressive again en route to a victory secured with goals from Rodri, Fabián Ruiz, Nico Williams and Dani Olmo, a lovely combination of quality, control and velocity and are surely favourites, but that may make it sound a little simpler than it was. If only because for the first time here in Germany they trailed.
At least, it risks diminishing what Georgia did here, however much they deserved to progress – and they did. Willy Sagnol’s men meanwhile are heading home, where 3.7m people will rightly welcome them as heroes. The lowest ranked team here, 74 in the world, 35 in Europe, that is no surprise. What is a surprise is how much they will be missed, how much fun we had watching them, how far they came. And for a while here, they wondered if they might even go a little further; Sagnol’s team opened the scoring, becoming the first to get a goal against Spain, and when at last they fell, they did so seeking a way back into a game they had refused to give up on.
Six sheets were strung across the stand spelling out the word BELIEVE in big red, capital letters. And what if they really could? Giorgi Kochorashvili had already described this as “a beautiful, unbelievable film”, and that was before the moment that they cut through Spain and scored the opening goal here. They had been playing 18 minutes when it happened. Or at least Spain had; Georgia had resisted as best they could while the red shirts had come at them in waves, each more insistent, more intense than the last.
It had only taken 50 seconds for Nico Williams to go beyond Otar Kakabadze and get the first ball in, just over a hundred of them for Fabián Ruiz to fire off the first shot, and less then 10 minutes for Giorgi Mamardashvili to make the first save. By the time Georgia got out of their half, the possession stats read 88 per cent to 12 per cent and the shot count 9-0. But, for all the dominance, when they did get out, they were devastating. Khvicha Kvaratskhelia started it, flying up the left wing and coming inside, and it all happened so fast.
Kvaratskhelia laid it off but didn’t stop. Otar Kiteishvili was the recipient, scampering across the middle of the pitch, opening the play out to the other side where Kakabadze was running into space. He reached the edge of the area and delivered a curling ball into the six-yard box for Kvaratskhelia, bombing in from the left. Robin Le Normand got there first but could only deflect it into the net. It was actually happening; Georgia had scored. Well, Spain had but who cared? Not the subs streaming on to the pitch that’s for sure; not the supporters with tears streaming down their faces either. This was a shock, the shock.
Spain felt it. They had been so on top, so superior. You couldn’t really find fault with anything they had done so far – except perhaps not end that move before it fully unfolded. Now though, they lost control a little. Georgia were flying. Belief, indeed. It was not that they had the ball, not that they pushed Spain back, but the willingness to run, to go when they got a glimpse of the chance to do so, and go in numbers, was quite something.
Le Normand had to block a shot and then Mikautadze went tumbling in the area. Another break, again begun by Kiteishvili, saw the same pair sprinting upfield, the roar rising with each step. Spain were a bit hurried but they did deservedly get their way back just before the break when Rodri found Williams who laid it back again and the Manchester City midfielder guided a clean shot into the corner. Georgia had a player down when it went in; the worst thing was that it was Kiteishvili, so impressive until then.
The celebration spoke of relief, and it was natural to believe that it was done now, the game back at Spain’s feet. That they would score again felt inevitable, logic reestablished. The threat, though, remained at both ends, both sides moving fast in their own way. One dash early in the second half saw Kvaratskhelia catch out Unai Simón from the halfway line; his shot, though, faded just wide. Almost immediately, Lamine Yamal went off on a run of his own, heading inside from the right. Taken down on the edge of the area, the 16-year-old took the free-kick himself.
Mamardashvili made a superb save then, his sixth already, but he couldn’t stop everything. The ball was worked back to Lamine Yamal who clipped a gorgeous ball in for Ruiz to head Spain into the lead. Eleven seconds had passed between the save and the goal. Lamine Yamal then flashed another shot just wide and, gifted another chance soon after, bent the ball beyond the other post. The selección were not settling for two, even if the search for more was far more controlled now, time on their side. Exhausted, Georgia’s runs forward were fewer and more desperate. When Kvaratskhelia found Giorgi Tsitaishvili, giving him a good sight of goal, the shot sliced wide.
Still they tried, to the last, even if the risk was realised, a Kvaratskhelia run coming to a close on the edge of the Spain area. In a flash, with fast feet, Williams was inside the Georgia area, lifting the ball brilliantly over Mamardashvili and into the net to make it three. Now it was done, Olmo wrapping it all off with a fourth to see Spain into the quarter-final.
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