Today, Temur Ketsbaia, head coach of Georgian national team, hold a press conference at the football center “Basa” and answered journalist’s questions. As you know, head coach called up 21 players from the national Championship, who will be candidates for the first match of European Championship qualifying stage.

“From now we start to prepare for the match against Ireland. We have the opportunity of having Georgian Championship’s players and I want to thank teams for this. Everyone will have a chance to be in the team and no matter they play abroad or home. 21 players are called up and if someone cannot come from abroad, we will fill the team from available contigent”, - said Ketsbaia.

After third round of Georgian Championship, Jaba Dvali and Davit Siradze are top scorers of Super League with 3-3 goals. In spite of this, Giorgi Gabedaba, forward of “Samtredia”, is also in the team. Ketsbaia said that the focus should be done on those players who played in Europe.

“As for Gabedava, he hit the team because scored at Europa League and this is important. Irish players play for Premier League teams and they have huge experience. We have to compare gambling level and then talk about why I called up a player”.

Temur Ketsbaia also emphasized the situation in the Georgian Championship: “Everybody was saying that we do not have money, but we saw that the Championship started anyway. However, I have never seen teams disperse so quickly. Because the team could not succeed in Europe, you cannot dismiss a player and few of them were members of the national team.

Five years ago, I said to give a chance to young players, but nobody trusted me. Now came this initiative, when I attended the match of “Zestafoni” – “Dinamo” I was glad to see so many young players”.

Head coach of Georgian national team also talked about the expectation of the match against Ireland.

“We played 5 matches against Ireland and lost all of them, so this time we have to break the tradition. We have good players and I repeat once again, the result is important and not beautiful football. We have to do the analysis and then get a result” – said Ketsbaia.

Recall that Ketsbaia selected 21 players from the national championship teams, who will hold friendly matches against “Sioni” Bolnisi and “Spartak” Tskhinvali on August 29-30.

The first official match of the European qualifying stage 2016 among Georgia and Ireland will take place at “Dinamo Arena” on September 7 at 20:00. 

Giorgi Balakhadze