Willy Sagnol, head coach of the Georgia national team, held a post-match press conference after the victory over Portugal in the last round of the group stage at the EURO 2024.

“I cannot really remember what I said to the players before the match but I think the message to the players was more like to play your football, keep a discipline when you do not have the ball and when you have it just play. To some players I even said remember when you were 16, 17, 18, you were playing without any thoughts, do exactly the same. And I think they have done it brilliantly today, above all expectations.

I am so proud of the players because what an image of Georgia they have shown today and not just today but also against Czech Republic and Turkey. I feel very proud to be their manager.

When you are the small team, you have nothing to lose. When you are France, England, Spain, Portugal, you are under pressure because people expect you to win. And I understand that is very difficult. But we do not have all these things. The only responsibility we had at the beginning of the competition was to make the Georgian nation proud of their players. I think we have done it the best way.

We have players who want not only to win but to win in a nice way. It is easier when you have this kind of profiles. It is easier to try to do it that way and I am very happy with it. When you look at our bench, maybe it is not the most exciting bench in term of quality but in term of human quality, group quality, I think we have the best team.

I think we reach our maximum already qualifying in March. You know it is football and football is never written before. You talked about Kiteishvili. He was injured for two weeks. He just had one or two training sessions and the match he provided today was absolutely fantastic. I do not want to say his club is a small club because I respect all the clubs but this kind of player deserves to play in top 5 in Europe without any problem.

Spain is probably the best team of the first round. So it is another big challenge for us. But for sure we are going to fight till the last minute, like we have done since the beginning of the competition.

When the referee blew the final whistle, only then we believed that we won. We often checked the time but in the end we had no emotions”, - said Sagnol.

WORLDSPORT.GE from Gelsenkirchen