Kacharava scores for Georgia

Why this location? The match couldn’t take place in Yerevan due to an ongoing military conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan. Even though on Friday, the Foreign Affairs Ministries of both nations announced a cease-fire, the decision to change the location of the football game has already been made. Georgia and Armenia searched for a neutral stadium and Tychy – the home ground of second-tier GKS – was eventually picked.

If you look at the map, Tychy stadium is only 30km away from Piast Gliwice’s home ground. Nika Kacharava will have positive memories about the Upper Silesia stadiums – not long ago did he score a debut goal for Lech in a league clash with Piast Gliwice (4:1), and now he found the back of the net wearing his national team’s shirt, and he did it less than a minute into the second half.

Armenia won the first half 1:0, hence Kacharava’s successful attempt helped his team equalize. The match was an emotional rollercoaster as the Georgians took the lead with a goal from Okriashvili. However, in the end, the two teams had to share points since the Armenians equalized shortly before the final whistle.

North Macedonia is the current leader of Group 2 in Division C of the UEFA Nations League. The top-ranked team has won 5 points so far – the same amount as the Georgians who are ranked second. Armenia is a single point behind and Estonia is currently occupying the last position with just 1 point on their account.

It was Kacharava’s 19th cap and his third goal for Georgia. Previously, the striker scored against Estonia in a Nations League match (1:0) and against Serbia in World Cup 2018 qualifiers (1:3). Kacharava will get an opportunity to improve his statistics in the upcoming clash with North Macedonia which is scheduled for Wednesday. Interestingly, in a month’s time (November 12^th), the two teams will once again face each other, but this time in EURO 2021 playoffs.