Football
Khvicha is tearing Italy apart! He twisted into the top nine with a long-range shot and brought Napoli a victory. Video
Khvicha Kvaratskhelia / Photo: © Danilo Di Giovanni / Contributor / Getty Images Sport / Gettyimages.ru
The former Rubin player lights up at the start of the season in Serie A.
When Khvicha Kvaratskhelia moved to Napoli, many doubted that he would pull the level of a European top club. Whatever one may say, the young footballer spent most of his career in the weaker Russian championship, and moved to Italy from his native Georgia. The experience of Alexey Miranchuk and Alexander Kokorin showed that getting used to working conditions in Serie A can be very difficult …
However, it was not without reason that the Georgian was recently included in the lists of the most promising players on the planet. Contrary to the expectations of some experts, Khvicha opened the scoring for the new club in the first match of the season. And now, a week later, he declared himself again, scoring one of the most spectacular goals of the tour in Italy.
Hvicha just can’t be stopped!
The fairy tale continues
In terms of performance, the match against Verona in the first round of Serie A, the Georgian striker played just exemplary. Khvicha scored Napoli’s first goal of the season with a 37th-minute goal to help the team make a comeback before the break (2-1). In the second half, Kvaratskhelia showed himself again, giving an assist to Piotr Zelinsky – the goal of the Polish player eventually became victorious for the Neapolitans (5:2).
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It seemed better than the debut and not come up with! However, skeptics after the game pointed out that in many respects, the player did not perform so wellas it might seem. The Georgian, known for his dribbling, turned out to be the worst player of the tour in terms of the quality of dribbles (0 successful feints on 8 attempts) and one of the worst – in the fight for the ball (12 out of 14 duels lost, efficiency – 14%) … Don’t fans overestimate his usefulness for commands?
In the second round, Khvicha gave the haters a powerful response. In the match with Monza, Kvaratskhelia again turned out to be the most enterprising attacking player and opened the scoring in the 35th minute. And if last time the goal of the Georgian turned out to be an ordinary one, now it will definitely enter the cuts of the main moments of the tour in Serie A. What’s there, he already claims to be the best!
Kvaratskhelia organized a goal almost from scratch – in any case, the defenders of Monza clearly did not expect his strike. Khvicha received the ball from Zelinsky, being outside the penalty area, after which he began to shift to the center … But to the surprise of his opponents, the Georgians did not break through someone else’s defense or make a pass to a partner. The football player struck a powerful blow from a long distance, spinning the ball into the far corner of the goal. Brilliant performance!
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And Khvicha did not stop there, continuing to follow the schedule of “one effective action per half”. In the 62nd minute, when Napoli had already secured a comfortable advantage (2:0), the striker brought the score to a devastating one. And this time the Georgians just used the vaunted technique. On the way to the goal, the footballer deftly dealt with Monza’s defender Valentin Antov – after Khvichi’s tricks, the Bulgarian almost fell to the ground! Having cleared the way, Kvaratskhelia sent the ball into the far corner – 3:0!
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By the way, this goal was not the last in the match. At the very end, Kim Min-Ja was noted, sending the league’s newcomers to the bottom of the table with four goals conceded in this meeting.
A double against Monza allowed Kvaratskhelia to become the unequivocal hero of the match, and Napoli to gain a foothold among the leaders after the second round (2 matches, 2 wins). At the same time, Khvicha is already one of the most useful players in Serie A: he already has 4 points in the “goal + pass” system, so you should not pay attention to the rest of the statistics – the player is doing his job. Now the main thing is to keep this performance at the distance of the championship. If the attacker succeeds in doing this, he can turn into a world star right before our eyes.
Source: Sportbox
I am a sports writer and journalist who has written for various online publications including Sportish. I’m originally from the UK but currently live in Toronto, Canada. I’m also an author on Sportish and have written several articles on a variety of sports-related topics.
