The Georgian national football team finished the tenth qualifying round. Since the lost match to Moldova on 7 September, 1994, twelve different coaches headed the national team in official matches. 5 from 12 coaches were foreigners.

We had Johan Boskamp who said “Georgian mentality is stupid; Ivo Susak of Croatia who held only two matches; Alain Giresse who had good result in the African teams; Klaus Toppmoller who has not worked in football after leaving Georgia; Hector Cuper of Argentina who was one of the best coaches at the beginning of the century.

Overall, all five foreign coaches won only 5 matches. Only 5. Boskamp and Cuper left Georgia without a single win.

These 5 coaches had one in common: before arriving in Georgia they have not worked for the national team. Maybe, is it the reason of such bad result? It is nonsense to doubt their qualifications (especially, in case of Cuper and Toppmoller). Then, the main reasons can be lack of experience in the national team or foreign environment and football style or the weakest football players or nihilistic attitude of coaches and players.

Cuper even established “Tuesdays” and we could make only one conclusion: “Look, what I teach the players. They do not know simple ones”. Since then there is an opinion that “we do not have football players”.

Temur Ketsbaia coaches the national team but it is not known if he will go on working for the national team next year. Ketsbaia and managers of the federation will meet in November and will discuss the previous qualifying round and future plans.

The issue Georgian or foreigner coach is not right, I think. The main thing is how coach is going to work, if his plan will work for Georgian football style.

Statistics of 12 coaches in official matches:

Aleksandre Chivadze 18 7 2 9 21:23 23 points

Davit Kipiani 6 3 1 2 7:6 10

Vladimer Gutsaev 5 1 1 3 3:9 4

Johan Boskamp 5 0 1 4 5:9 1

Davit Kipiani/Revaz Dzodzuashvili 5 1 0 4 6:10 3

Ivo Susak 2 1 0 1 1:2 3

Merab Zhordania 3 1 0 2 5:6 3

Alain Giresse 7 1 2 4 10:16 5

Gaioz Darsadze 5 1 1 2 4:9 5

Klaus Toppmoller 12 3 1 8 16:19 10

Hector Cuper 10 0 3 7 6:18 3

Temur Ketsbaia 18 3 6 9 10:19 15    

Georgian: 60 17 12 31 56:82 63

Foreigner: 35 5 7 24 38:64 22

Overall, the national team has held 88 qualifying matches: won 22, drew 19 and lost 55. Ball balance – 94:146.

Ilia Nanobashvili