Who would have thought Georgia would reach the round of 16 before this European Championship? Looking at their performance in the European qualifiers, it is obvious that they are far from Spain and Scotland, and even compared with Norway, there is a lot of distance. But in this European Cup, they are considered to be hanging, in fact, the final round upset defeat to Portugal is nothing, after all, the latter has already qualified in advance; And before they drew with the Czech Republic and lost to Turkey, it was the embodiment of their strength. Especially in the 1:3 loss to Turkey, don't look at the score is a little big, but Turkey's last goal was to use the Georgian goalkeeper to fight for the top in their own penalty area, resulting in an empty goal, and Turkey used a counterattack to lock up the win. And in terms of the quality of the game, it was definitely the best of the 24 matches in the group stage. Georgia is not as weak as it seems.
And Georgia's encounter with Spain after beating Portugal to advance to the group is also quite delicate. After all, Georgia lost 1:7 at home to Spain in the European preliminaries, which can be said to be a revenge battle, or rather, an opportunity to prove itself again. Whether Georgia is a fish belly that has run out of luck or a dark horse that has been hidden for a long time depends on this quarter-final. If they still lose by a big score, there's not much to say. But what if they are Moroccan possessed? That is, to defeat Portugal and Spain in a row and laugh at the Iberian Peninsula, it will be more Moroccan than Morocco. After all, in terms of strength, Georgia is certainly inferior to Morocco.
It is worth mentioning that before 2024, there are 7 teams that meet Spain and Portugal respectively in a single European Championship, that is, in just one European Championship, they have played both Spain and Portugal. And Georgia, is the 8th.
Let's take a look back at the previous 7 teams.
The first was 1984 and 2004. These two European Championships are special because Spain and Portugal are in a group, so their opponents in the same group are certainly in line with the topic we talked about today. In the 1984 European Championship, Germany and Romania were in the same group as Spain, but these two teams had nothing to say, after all, it was Spain that advanced at that time, and Germany and Romania were completely supporting roles.
At Euro 2000, Greece and Russia were in the same group as Spain. This time Spain was more unlucky and went out of the group. Portugal, on the other hand, won the group despite losing to Greece. The worst is Russia, after two consecutive defeats, even if Greece is defeated in the third round, it will not help. Of course, neither Portugal nor Spain were the protagonists of that European Championship, they both gave way to Greek mythology.
Germany, Romania, Greece and Russia are all examples of the group stage, while Croatia at Euro 2016 played Spain in the group stage and then Portugal in the knockout round. Perhaps this example is more typical. Croatia's defeat to Spain in the group stage was seen by many as an upset, and their loss to Portugal in the quarter-finals was something many did not expect.
The other two examples are cattle. Because they both won the eventual championship – France at Euro 1984 and France at Euro 2000.
France has won the European Cup twice, and they actually ate a Spanish Portuguese set, which is indeed very fateful. At Euro 1984, France played at home, beating Portugal 3-2 in the semi-finals and then Spain 2-0 in the final. At Euro 2000, France defeated Spain 2-1 in the quarter-finals and then defeated Portugal by the same score in the semi-finals to advance to the final.
Finally back here in Georgia. Whether it is from the point of meeting or from the general trend, Georgia's target should be Croatia in Euro 2016, that is, it is not easy for them to get lucky to pull out a tooth in the group stage, and when it comes to the real matchup in the knockout round, they may be bitten off by another tooth.
Of course, I still hope that Georgia will really be possessed by Morocco at the 2022 World Cup.