Just 90 minutes away from a first-ever appearance at a major tournament, Georgia host Greece in Tuesday's Euro 2024 qualifying playoff Path C semi-final in Tbilisi.
Willy Sagnol's men booked their ticket to the showpiece with a 2-0 beating of 10-man Luxembourg in their semi-final showdown, while the Pirate Ship Crew hit Kazakhstan for five without reply.
Match preview
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As Napoli wing wizard Khvicha Kvaratskhelia took his place on the naughty step for Georgia's semi-final with Luxembourg, which he was unavailable for due to suspension, the Crusaders' visitors may have arrived in Tbilisi with quiet optimism of leaving the home crowd crestfallen.
However, Karlsruher SC striker Budu Zivzivadze made himself the hero in Kvaratskhelia's absence on Thursday, netting either side of the half-time whistle to sink the 10 men of Luxembourg, whose hopes of a second-half turnaround evaporated when Maxime Chanot was given his marching orders.
By prolonging Luxembourg's wait for a major tournament debut, Georgia need only pick up one more victory to achieve that elusive feat and complete Euro 2024 Group F, where Portugal, Turkey and the Czech Republic will be waiting to welcome them.
Boarding the plane to Germany would see Georgia hit new heights in their meteoric rise from the ashes, having also shot up from the fourth to the second tier of the Nations League since the tournament's inauguration in 2018, although a 10-2 aggregate loss to Spain in Euros qualifying was certainly a rude awakening.
However, the 3-1 defeat to La Roja in September represents the Crusaders' only reverse from their last five matches across all tournaments - a sequence which has also seen Sagnol's team find the back of the net at least twice in four of those fixtures - and not since June 2022 have they been shut out on familiar territory.
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Georgia's visitors Greece need no lessons in attacking supremacy either, though, as Gus Poyet's men made light work of an ostensibly tricky semi-final with an in-form Kazakhstan side, thrashing their fellow Euro 2024 hopefuls 5-0 at the Agia Sophia Stadium.
Four of those goals flew past the beleaguered Kazakhstan backline in the opening 40 minutes, where Anastasios Bakasetas, Dimitrios Pelkas, Fotis Ioannidis and Dimitrios Kourbelis killed the game off early doors before Erkin Tapalov's late own goal added insult to injury for the visitors.
Prolonging the feel-good factor from a positive end to 2023, where the Pirate Ship Crew eased past New Zealand 2-0 and held France to a creditable 2-2 draw, the Euro 2004 winners - celebrating the 20th anniversary of that astonishing continental triumph - arrive in Tbilisi with just one loss on their notebook from their last six games.
Barring that 1-0 loss to the Netherlands, each of Greece's other five games in that stretch has seen Poyet's team score multiple goals, and successfully fighting fire with fire against Georgia would see the visitors end their 12-year exile from the Euros, having failed to make either the 2016 or 2020 editions.
The head-to-head column makes for highly pleasant reading for the Greece faithful ahead of Tuesday's match, as the Pirate Ship Crew have avoided defeat in each of their first nine games with Georgia - winning seven of them - including a 2-0 success in Batumi during a 2022 World Cup qualifier.
Team News
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Having served his penalty for an accumulation of yellow cards, Kvaratskhelia is now eligible for selection once more and should almost certainly be drafted back into the Georgia XI, although his deputy Zivzivadze does not merit a demotion to the bench.
As a result, Metz's on-loan Ajax striker Georges Mikautadze could make way for 'Kvaradona', as he is affectionately known, but Sagnol did not suffer any new injury blows in the beating of Luxembourg and should therefore be able to send out an otherwise untouched team.
Valencia shot-stopper Giorgi Mamardashvili - previously linked with a move to the Premier League - will guard the posts behind the Crusaders' 3-5-2 setup, where Greece-based Levan Shengelia, who represents Panetolikos, should act as the hosts' left wing-back.
As far as Greece are concerned, Poyet did not witness any of his troops sustain injuries or pick up milestone bookings in the thrashing of Kazakhstan, where centre-back Pantelis Hatzidiakos was taken off during the half-time interval.
The Cagliari man was already on a booking, though, so Poyet may very well have withdrawn him to spare him a possible sending-off and subsequent suspension for Tuesday's final, suggesting that he will reprise his role alongside Dinos Mavropanos in Tbilisi.
Despite being demoted to third choice at Nottingham Forest behind Matz Sels and Matt Turner, Odysseas Vlachodimos remains number one for his country and won his 40th senior cap for Greece in the pummelling of Kazakhstan.
Georgia possible starting lineup:
Mamardashvili; Kvirkvelia, Dvali, Kashia; Kakabadze, Kiteishvili, Chakvetadze, Kochorashvili, Shengelia; Zivzivadze, Kvaratskhelia
Greece possible starting lineup:
Vlachodimos; Baldock, Mavropanos, Hatzidiakos, Tsimikas; Bakasetas, Kourbelis, Mantalos; Masouras, Ioannidis, Pelkas
We say: Georgia 2-3 Greece
The return of a well-rested Kvaratskhelia represents potentially the biggest boost that Georgia could have wished for ahead of such a momentous occasion, where the formidable Tbilisi crowd should more than play their part in their team's endeavours.
A clash between two prolific attacking units has the potential to be an incredible watch for the neutral, but given the manner of Greece's destructive performance against a hitherto impressive Kazakhstan outfit, Poyet's men have our vote to return to the biggest continental stage and extend Georgia's wait for a major tournament baptism.
For data analysis of the most likely results, scorelines and more for this match please click here.
Ben Knapton
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