Khvicha Kvaratskhelia carried Georgian football onto stages it had never reached
Napoli had not been champions of Italy for 33 years when a winger bought from Dinamo Batumi arrived in 2022. He scored three times in his first two league games and ended the season as Serie A's MVP. Then came Paris, two Champions League titles and a string of firsts for Georgia.
Born on 12 February 2001, Kvaratskhelia debuted for Dinamo Tbilisi at 16 in 2017, left after a contract dispute for Rustavi, and in 2018 was on The Guardian's list of 60 outstanding young players worldwide. He spent a loan spell at Lokomotiv Moscow, whose coach Yuri Semin was upset not to keep him, then signed a five-year deal at Rubin Kazan in July 2019 and scored against Lokomotiv in his first match. Rubin's fans voted him their Player of the Month four times in 2020–21, and he took two straight Best Young Player awards in the Russian league.
In March 2022 FIFA let foreign players in Russia suspend their contracts, and he went home to Dinamo Batumi, scoring eight in 11 league games. Napoli paid a reported €10–12 million that July. He was Player of the Month in August and again in February and March 2023, the first to take the award more than once in a season, and finished that title-winning campaign with 12 goals and a league-best 10 assists. He also collected the Champions League's young player prize.
He announced his exit from Napoli in January 2025 with the club top of the table, which angered many fans; they went on to win the title in May anyway, giving him two league winner's medals in one season. PSG signed him on a deal to 2029, with the fee reported as €70 million plus up to €10 million in bonuses. He became the first Georgian to win Ligue 1 and the Coupe de France, and scored in the 5–0 Champions League final against Inter.
In 2026 he set a club record of ten goals and five assists in one European run, including two in a 5–4 semi-final win over Bayern, and earned the penalty in the final against Arsenal that PSG won on a shootout. He was named the competition's Player of the Season. For his country he has been a fixture since a 2019 debut against Gibraltar, now wears the captain's armband, and helped Georgia reach Euro 2024, its first major tournament.
Source: Khvicha Kvaratskhelia
