When you’re a small team, you have nothing to lose, Sagnol says of Georgia

Georgia arrived at Euro 2024 with no expectations, manager Willy Sagnol said, having already celebrated what they thought would be their biggest achievement in just qualifying.

Sagnol’s men upended Portugal – a team ranked 68 places above them – 2-0 on Wednesday to roar into the knock-out round in their major tournament debut, thanks to goals from Khvicha Kvaratskhelia and Georges Mikautadze.

There are benefits to being tournament underdogs, Sagnol said.

“When you’re the small team, you know you have nothing to lose,” the Frenchman said. “The only thing we said before the competition is whatever happened, we don’t want any regrets after the competition, the regret of maybe not having played our football or maybe not having enjoyed the competition as much as we should have done.

“So, you have no weight on your shoulders. It’s difficult when you’re France, when you’re England, when you’re Spain, when you’re Portugal, because you’re under pressure, because people expect you to win.

“The only responsibility we had was to make the Georgian nation proud of their players. And I think we’ve done it the best way.”

It was a well-deserved win for Georgia who, roared on by their delirious fans, both battled all night and were technically superb.

“When you look at our bench, it’s not the most exciting in terms of football quality – but it is in terms of human quality,” Sagnol said. “I’m very, very happy. I thought qualifying was our maximum but football is never written before.”

In the game’s dying minutes, Sagnol said he checked the clock “about every 10 seconds” until the final whistle blew.

Sagnol’s pre-game message was: “Play your football, keep discipline when you don’t have the ball and when you have it, just play.

“To some players, I even told them, remember when you were 16, 17, 18, you were playing without any foes, then do exactly the same. And I think they did it brilliantly today, above all expectations.”

Sagnol, who played for Bayern Munich and was a World Cup finalist for France in 2006, said it was difficult to compare taking Georgia to the last-16 after the biggest upset in Euro history with his own playing career.

“Because we are still so much focussed on the competition, I think it’s still a bit difficult to realise what we have done,” he said. “It will probably happen when we go back to our homes and go on holidays.

“But today, I don’t have a lot of words. I’m so proud of the players because you know what an image of Georgia they have shown today and not just today, but also against Czech Republic, against Turkey” in their other group games.

Georgia take on three-time Euro winners Spain in their last-16 game.

“We didn’t even try to know before the match if we would win, we would play maybe against this team or maybe this team, because we’re not like that,” Sagnol said. “We just take the things the way it comes. And Spain is coming. Spain is probably the best team of the first round. So it’s another big challenge for us.”