«I saw a phenomenon, nobody knows about it»- Corriere.it

The Kvaratskhelia phenomenon, protagonist yesterday with a goal against Maradona in Napoli’s victory over Atalanta, starts from a distance. Napoli ds Cristiano Giuntoli had been following the Georgian since 2020, the winger was just over 17 years old. And it was Zaccardo, who represented him in Italy, who spoke to him for the first time. The Neapolitan manager began to monitor him, asked his collaborators for a report and realized the great potential of the Georgian winger. But it was then he himself who went to see him, to get to know him, to scrutinize his human qualities as well (“serious, ancient boy” he said later). Still small, probably immature, it was worth continuing to follow him. A year later – and Rino Gattuso was at the helm of Napoli – Giuntoli asked the coach to have a chat with Kaladze, also a Georgian, who told the sports director on the phone that it was a phenomenon. Here the Kvara thought became an obsession. It took the courage to go and get him, Giuntoli was able to wait and he did it, two years later.

The backstory

The report given to him by Calzona, former deputy of Sarri and Gattuso, confirmed that this very strong boy could have become a champion. We are in October 2021, Giuntoli sees and revises his videos and is convinced: he is a phenomenon. One day he enters the dressing room, there were Ghoulam and Koulibaly (a bit like the senators of that team) and he said: «Guys I saw a phenomenon». The players, curious, asked him: “What’s his name?”. The sporting director did not immediately mention his name (“you don’t know him anyway”) but they insisted. Eventually that unpronounceable name was mentioned but he said nothing to either of them. Giuntoli, convinced, knew that he would take him to Naples. The background was told by Ghoulam himself to Dazn, on Saturday evening, during the broadcast “Tutti bravo sul sofa”.

Two years of waiting

Why did it take another two years? Kvara cost 30 million: too much for Napoli’s coffers, which had to be sold sooner. He had to wait. Where is the trick, the director asked himself several times: from 2020 to the summer of 2022 no other Italian club had come forward for him. Or rather no one then treated him. Here the courage to wait for the price to drop (Napoli paid him 10 million in the semi-unknown Dinamo Batumi shop) and above all that there was a change in the team. The trick wasn’t there, evidently. And Napoli is now traveling at high levels thanks also to the prowess of this boy who plays well and speaks little. But the champion, born in Tbilisi, did not shy away from taking sides for his country against the government’s provision. He felt the need to take the field on the political front. “Georgia’s future is in Europe,” he wrote on social media against the fear of Russia’s influence.