Khvicha Kvaratskhelia is PSG's Georgian George Best… he can turn their Champions League tie with Liverpool on its head

During the late summer of 2020, there was a growing sense of excitement among recruitment staff at Brighton’s training base, nestled between the South Downs and the mouth of the English Channel.

The scouting structure constructed by Albion owner Tony Bloom is the envy of the world game for good reason: the club signed players like Moises Caicedo, Alexis Mac Allister and Marc Cucurella for relatively small sums before selling them at a huge profit.

Bloom’s data algorithm for finding players is one of the most effective around and this time, the model had identified a 19-year-old Georgian winger at Rubin Kazan in the Russian Premier League. His name? Khvicha Kvaratskhelia, recently bought by Paris Saint-Germain from Napoli for £65million and one of the main threats to Liverpool in Tuesday’s Champions League last-16 second leg tie at Anfield.

In the end, Brighton did not follow through their interest in Kvaratskhelia, with Bloom and his team spotting a player in Japan’s J-League who played in a similar position to Kvaratskhelia, and who they knew they could buy for £2.5million. The acquistion of Kaoru Mitoma from Kawasaki Frontale in August 2021 has not worked out too badly.

It is yet another example of how smart Brighton are. When they sign or scout a player, we have all learned to sit up and take notice.

That is exactly the effect Kvaratskhelia has been having since he moved to Napoli in summer 2022 from Dinamo Batumi in his homeland, with the Serie A club paying a mere £11m.

Forming a fabulous partnership with Victor Osimhen, Kvaratskhelia finished the campaign with 12 goals and 13 assists and Napoli were crowned champions for only the third time in their history. They loved him so much in Naples they even nicknamed him ‘Kvaradona’. When a player is compared to Diego Maradona, a near-deity in Naples and arguably the greatest footballer in history, he must be doing something right.

Even now, in his third season in Europe’s top-five leagues, there is something gloriously unrefined about Kvaratskhelia. Where some modern players seem to spend as much time perfecting their hairstyles and finessing their Instagram stories as they do working on their weaker foot, Kvaratskhelia’s trim is the sort delivered by a standard town-centre barber.

With the ball at his feet, he appears to shuffle while somehow also moving at high speed. While mightily effective, his signature move – cutting in from the left on to his right foot – was worked out over time by Serie A defences: in his first season, Kvaratskhelia was registering nearly a goal or an assist per 90 minutes; by his final campaign, that had dropped to barely more than one every other game.

Perhaps that was partly why no Premier League club seriously rivalled PSG when they did the deal in January, though Mail Sport understands Chelsea had considered it in the past, even weighing up which players to offer Napoli as part-exchange.

With Billy Gilmour now with Napoli and Trevoh Chalobah having interested them in the past, the Italians were open to negotiation – though they are notoriously difficult to deal with.

Sporting directors and agents across Europe shudder at the prospect of sitting across a table from Napoli president Aurelio De Laurentiis, a fearsome opponent in transfer talks. Clubs can feel they are on the brink of an agreement, only for circumstances to change repeatedly. Some decide they do not need the hassle and move on to the next target on their list.

With Kvaratskhelia, though, surely it would have been worth the bother.

David Webb, the British assistant coach of the Georgian national team, saw Harry Kane at close quarters during a stint at Tottenham from 2015-17 and believes the England captain shares numerous traits with Kvaratskhelia.

‘The elite players, like Harry Kane, have this edge to them where they have a desire to be the absolute best they can be – and Kvara has that,’ Webb tells Mail Sport. ‘You can’t get him off the training pitch.

‘He wants to do shooting, finishing, free-kicks, always that extra. I remember speaking to Gareth Southgate about him, and he said: ‘I love him. He’s a throwback, almost like George Best. He’s so skilful and strong but deceptively quick.’

Look again at the strike against Liverpool, chalked off for the most fractional offside call, to understand the 24-year-old’s appetite for improvement.

Ryan Gravenberch seemed to relax ever so slightly when he saw the ball on Kvaratskhelia’s weaker foot. Only when the ball had been despatched beyond Alisson into the far corner did the Liverpool midfielder realise his mistake.

Had that goal counted, it would have been Kvaratskhelia’s third in a row with his left foot, and the fourth in eight at club level. Before that, only three of his previous 21 goals had come from his left side.

In many eyes, Kvaratskhelia would have been perfect complement to Mohamed Salah on the opposite flank. Yet Oliver Dehnhardt, the head of football strategy at respected scouting platform Eyeball, underlines why PSG was such an attractive option and why Premier League clubs might have thought twice.

‘Top English clubs are well-stocked in those positions and when PSG are in the fight for a player, the salary becomes very high,’ he tells Mail Sport. ‘I imagine he would be among at least the top-eight earners for any UK club, so he needs to be a fixed starter.

‘Don’t underestimate the PSG project either: it’s a fantastic city, they pay very well and they typically win two trophies a year and perform well in the Champions League.

‘Then you can run down your contract and move to Real Madrid or another top club. So there are multiple factors.’

Kvaratskhelia’s success has accelerated a trend. Valencia goalkeeper Giorgi Mamardashvili will join Liverpool in the summer and more graduates of the Dinamo Tbilisi academy will surely follow in the years ahead.

‘He has proved to kids in Georgia that you can become a wealthy person through playing football,’ adds Dehnhardt. ‘Then it has a population of only about four million and young footballers make progress quickly. The best go to Dinamo Tbilisi and that makes it easier to scout the market effectively.’

If Kvaratskhelia performs on Tuesdayas he did in the first leg against Liverpool, the interest in Georgian footballers will only grow, and scouts worldwide are already beguiled by 16-year-old Dinamo Tbilisi prospect Saba Kharebashvili.

A left-back who is also comfortable in midfield, Kharebashvili played in the UEFA Conference League aged 15 and has done so well in his appearances for the Dinamo first team that Liverpool and Real Madrid are among those watching closely.

If he turns out to be even half as good as Kvaratskhelia, Georgian football will have another superstar on its hands.

The secrets of ‘Kvaradona’s’ success

David Webb is the English-born assistant manager of the Georgian national team and has been working closely with Khvicha Kvaratskhelia since he was appointed in August 2023.

When Webb linked up with Georgia, Kvaratskhelia was a rising star of European football thanks to his impressive displays with Napoli, who won the Serie A title in 2023 at the end of Kvaratskhelia’s first season.

As well as being an experienced coach, Webb has a masters degree in sports psychology and is in the perfect place to analyse the Paris Saint-Germain star’s qualities both on and off the field. Here he reveals to Mail Sport the secrets of Kvaratskhelia’s success.

Personality

Part of my remit when I joined was to have one-on-one meetings with the players and I was so impressed by Kvara. He is such a humble guy and you would never have known he was one of the standout players within the group. It’s a bit like Gareth Bale when he was with Wales – Kvara is a superstar but he doesn’t behave like one. He blends in with the rest of the players and enjoys a laugh and a joke around the camp. He is a family man with a wife and child and is very patriotic, very passionate.

Mindset

He has that edge that all elite players have, in that he wants to be the very best he can. He has a very articulate football mind. When we have tactical meetings, he will know already who will be marking him in the team we are going to face. It is quite a quiet group and only two or three players will ask questions in those meetings, but Kvara is always one of them. He will always want to know more about the players and teams he is going to come up against.

Work rate

You can’t get him off the training pitch. He wants to do shooting, finishing, free-kicks, one-against-one drills – always that extra. Someone will stay out on the grass with him for those extra 10 or 15 minutes, but always knowing we have to be careful with him because we need him for the games. That sort of behaviour is the perfect example for our younger players.

Skill

Though his right foot is his stronger foot, there is not a great deal in it, and that makes him a very dangerous player. He can shoot with both feet and shift the ball off both feet. He can play on either flank or as a No9, which is why PSG’s floating front three is perfect for him. With Georgia we use him as a No9 in a 3-5-2 system but with a free, roaming role, which allows him to drift left or right. He can be very effective there.

Athleticism

He is quite a slim guy but he is surprisingly strong. We’ve played teams where defenders will try to kick him out of the game and we’ve had to bring him off for his own protection, but he’s so difficult to knock off the ball. Then he is deceptively quick – just look at how he accelerates with the ball. He’s come up against some really tough defenders, especially in Serie A, but his power and upper-body strength enable him to compete.