Khvicha Kvaratskhelia: How PSG’s Georgia winger became a Champions League winner

The family home in Tbilisi, where Kvaratskhelia grew up, does not advertise that a global football star is being raised there.

It’s one of those anonymous Soviet-era apartment blocks that populate many parts of the city: concrete, worn-out, more functional than beautiful, surrounded by identical neighbors and the everyday sounds of a working-class area.

Inside that building, I met his father, Badri, a former Dinamo Tbilisi player and Azerbaijan national team player, and his mother, Maka, while their son was playing for Napoli.

It was a warm, welcoming house. It’s modest, not full of luxuries, but full of memories. Everywhere you looked there were little mementos of his journey; photos, awards, shirts. Among these is the first jersey he wore in Dinamo Tbilisi.

“Because this is where Khvicha’s professional career started. It must be Dynamo,” Maka said. “The road to the top started here.”

Kvaratskhelia still uses her small bedroom whenever she returns. In one corner there is a computer desk, a keyboard, large headphones, and a chair like the type used by gamers.

That little world is where he disappears for hours when he comes home.

The player, who was born on February 12, 2001, made football an integral part of his life from an early age. As his mother remembers, he walked with the ball and slept with it. Football was everything, but that doesn’t mean it was an easy path.

He started his professional career in 2017 at the age of 16, graduating from Dinamo Tbilisi’s academy, before moving to Rustavi and then earning his first significant salary on loan to Lokomotiv Moscow; this money allowed him to pay for life-saving heart surgery for his father.

“It wasn’t even a question for him,” Badri said.

On May 22, 2019, the 18-year-old would win his first major trophy as Lokomotiv Moscow won the Russian Cup.

This was followed by a transfer to Rubin Kazan, where he spent three seasons and won the Russian League’s best young player award twice.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine put an end to his stay, with FIFA announcing on 7 March 2022 that it could unilaterally suspend the contracts of all foreign players in Russia until 30 June and sign contracts with clubs outside Russia until the same date.

He went home by signing for Georgian club Dinamo Batumi.