The left winger and striker have scored more than half of their team's goals in Serie A this season (12 for Kvaratskhelia, 21 for Osimhen). "Khvicha", which means shining star in Georgian, is also the best passer (10) in a league that Napoli flies over with a 19-point lead.

So, if the club had won its only two league titles with the idol Diego Maradona, the third scudetto in a few weeks will owe a lot to the talent of "Kvaradona", as Neapolitan fans call him.

"Few people could have imagined at the time that this skinny boy would become an international star," Levan Salukvadze, an adviser to the president of Dinamo Tbilisi when Kvaratskhelia was at the academy, told AFP.

"The coaches were worried that he wasn't physically fit to play with the pros," he continues. "The president suggested waiting a few more years, but I told him that in two years Kvaratskhelia would play for Liverpool or Real."

Khvicha Kvaratskhelia during a training session with the Georgian national team, on March 24, 2023 in Tbilisi, on the eve of a friendly match against Mongolia © Vano SHLAMOV / AFP

In his first professional game, at the age of 16 in 2017, he scored a goal and provided an assist.

The one who has made Napoli happy since last summer has kept his slender physique. His dribbling, socks down, and changes of direction wreaked havoc on Italian and European defenses.

"Joyful" football

"Since he was a child, he has been fully focused on football and it's more than just a job for him... That's why his feints, his game, his runs and accelerations are so joyful," Salukvadze said.

Fresco on a wall in Tbilisi in honor of Georgian winger Khvicha Kvaratskhelia, star in Naples, March 22, 2023 © Vano SHLAMOV / AFP

"He has a technique worthy of the strongest in the world and he has this quality of feeling the goal, of always finding the most difficult angle," explained his coach Luciano Spalletti in January.

"What he is doing in Italy is extraordinary," Georgia's French coach Willy Sagnol recently told So Foot. "I remember that when he was free after his departure from Russia just after the invasion of Ukraine (in February 2022, editor's note), I spoke about him to some French clubs, who did not want to take him."

After leaving Russian club Rubin Kazan, Kvaratskhelia signed with Georgian side Dinamo Batumi before Napoli secured his services for just €10 million. It is now worth much more.

Teimuraz Ugrekhelidze, scout of Dinamo Tbilisi who discovered Khvicha Kvaratskhelia, on March 20, 2023 at the training center of the club © Vano SHLAMOV / AFP

We have come a long way from the family village of Nakifu in western Georgia. In almost all his interviews, Kvaratskhelia pays tribute to his family and his village, says biographer Giorgi Kekelidze.

"His grandfather Mamia and father Badri were good footballers and his grandmother Dunia was passionate. She used to wish all matches would end in a draw, so that no one would get upset. But that changed after Khvicha moved to Naples. She made the sign of the cross in front of her TV and prayed for him to win." When she died in January, Kvaratskhelia performed by wearing a bracelet with her name on it.

"Soviet Brazilians"

Georgian football historian Tengiz Pashkoria believes that the rich tradition of national football shaped "Khvicha".

During the golden age of Georgian football - from 1960 to 1980 - "Georgian players were referred to as +Soviet Brazilians+ in the European press," he says. "It was a very technical football made of improvisation and the style of Kvaratskhelia was nourished by this aesthetic."

Georgian winger Khvicha Kvaratskhelia poses with children on the sidelines of a training session with the national team, on March 24, 2023 in Tbilisi © Vano SHLAMOV / AFP

Local football specialist Levan Berdzenishvili also believes that Kvaratskhelia "is a nugget that has imbued itself with the best national characteristics", even if Georgia has seen many promising players not confirm, with the exception of Kakha Kaladze at AC Milan (2001-2010), who became mayor of Tbilisi.

"It wasn't until he started playing for a major team like Napoli that Kvaratskhelia was able to fully reveal his potential and it only took him nine months to become a star."

© 2023 AFP