Foreign legion seek Georgian first

Vakhtang Bzikadze & Pavle Gognidze

The top clubs in the Georgian Premier League are preparing for the second part of the championship knowing a special honour awaits the winning coach.

State honour for winner
The four leading sides all have a foreigner in charge - something unprecedented in Georgia - which means history will be made in May when one of these men becomes the first non-Georgian to take a team to the title. The Georgian State Department has promised that whichever coach ends the season victorious will receive a special award. A statement read: "The foreign coach who wins Georgian title this season will not only get the usual honours but also the title of honorary coach of Georgia to go with it."

Top six play off
With the Georgian championship being played in a complicated, two-stage system, the chances of each of the quartet are almost equal. The points total each team earned before the winter break has been halved as the top six sides play off for the title in a second stage running from 14 March to 30 May. Consequently, the four-point gap between leaders FC Dinamo Tbilisi and defending champions FC Torpedo Kutaisi has been reduced to just two, and FC Lokomotivi Tbilisi and FC WIT Georgia Tbilisi are only a point further behind.

Good tradition
The presence of foreign coaching talent in Georgia is nothing new. In the 1930s, Czech technician Jul Limbek coached Dinamo, as did Russians Alexander Sokolov and Mikhail Butusov. In 1960s and 1970s, two other Russian coaches, Mikhail Iakushin and Gavril Kachalin, won Soviet titles with Dinamo - although not even the great Kachalin could prevent legendary local boy Nodar Akhalkatsi from being voted Georgian coach of the century in a poll a few years ago.

Faith restored
The success of the current crop has renewed the country's faith in imported talent, following the unsuccessful spell of Dutchman Johan Boskamp in charge of the national team. Boskamp did not win any of his five UEFA EURO 2000™ qualifying matches at the helm. However, the next foreign coach to come, in 1999, is still there. Gianni Carnevali spent a year with FC Dinamo Batumi, and then moved to WIT, where he remains today. WIT are fourth in the table and struck a blow for Georgian football in the summer when they overcame Austrian side SV Ried in the first round of the UEFA Intertoto Cup.

Susak recharging Dinamo
The next, and perhaps most important, arrival from abroad was Croatian coach Ivo Susak, who took charge of leaders Dinamo last spring. Susak, who has vast experience of working in clubs across the Balkans, faces the challenge of restoring Dinamo - one of the top Soviet-era teams and UEFA Cup Winners' Cup winners in 1981 - to their former glories. A former Croatia Under-21 coach and national team assistant manager, Susak is Georgia's highest-paid coach.

Pressure on Shtelin
Dinamo lost out to Torpedo in last season's title race but now the defending champions, led by Ukrainian Olexander Shtelin, must overtake Susak's side if they are to retain their crown. Of the quartet, Shtelin is perhaps under most pressure, having been told his job depends not only on him winning the title, but also on Torpedo making it to UEFA Champions League group stages. Pressure indeed, but Shtelin knows how to deal with it, having worked with clubs in Belgium, Tunisia, Ukraine and Moldova before moving to Georgia.

Zacharias completes quartet
Last but not least among the foreign legion is a Peruvian, Luis Zacharias - the third coach at Lokomotivi this season. Zacharias - who has coached in Peru, Brazil and Germany, and also taken charge of Peru's U21 side - brought in reinforcements from his homeland, but his prospects were not helped by the departure of Zaza Janashia, one of Georgia's best players, for disciplinary reasons.

Narrow margin
It will be a close race, decided by the smallest margins - perhaps, even, right down to how well each coach can get his message across. While Shtelin is able to communicate to his Georgian players in Russian, the remaining three are just getting to grips with the local language. But none need telling how much is at stake - not just medals but a matter of honour, as the State Department would tell you.