Int’l media positively evaluates Georgian football team’s Euro 2024 debut after loss to Turkey

The Georgian national football team’s defeat to Turkey on Tuesday and the squad’s first-ever goal in the European Championship saw positive reviews from international sports reviewers and media outlets for the performance offered by the team.

In its match report, UEFA highlighted the team’s performance at the tournament in their opening Group F game by saying they “threw everything” at the goal of gaining a result from the fixture.

The debutants can exit with their heads held high, though, and now they know for sure: they belong on this stage”, the release said.

French Eurosport’s Alasdair Mackenzie reported the team “proved they belonged at this level in a thrilling encounter” and added “few would have expected that Turkey’s clash with Georgia on a stormy day in Dortmund would produce the most thrilling football we’ve seen so far” at the competition.

Photo: Sports Ministry

Georgia’s major tournament debut won’t be forgotten quickly and they showed plenty of encouraging signs despite defeat”, Mackenzie said in the article.

Charlotte Coates, the BBC sport journalist, in her article said the debutant Georgian team  “fought valiantly”.

Defeat was harsh on Georgia, who created history after Sagnol’s men beat Greece in a penalty shootout in the play-off final back in March. The French boss insisted his side would ‘give it everything’ in their first major tournament - and that was exactly what they did from the first minute”, she added.

Coates noted the team would “take plenty of positives” into their upcoming fixtures “despite leaving Dortmund with no points”.

The American daily newspaper The New York Times noted the match took the tournament to a new level.

Photo: nakrebi

An article for The Guardian, one of Britain's leading newspapers, said Georgia had “waited 30 years for this and kept coming to the end”.

Oh, what fun we had. What noise there was, what emotion, what an occasion”, the piece noted.

The Georgian squad lost 3:1 in their opening game, with matches against the Czech Republic and Portugal coming up next.