After the last group match, I said goodbye to Gdansk, this seaside city, departed for Warsaw and started preparation for ¼ final. From the start of the championship it happened for the first time that I had free time to go sightseeing but I preferred to fill “sleep balance” and slept for 8 hours! It was really difficult to bear 8 flights, 12 practicing, 12 press conferences and 6 matches for 12 days. Besides that, I slept only for 3-4 hours.
After sleeping, I went to the stadium. Only one kilometer and half is from our hotel to the stadium. As it was a working day, I put jeans on and went on foot. I was interested in Warsaw life while championship days. I cannot say that Poland lives with football. I felt like the national team was holding international match. I can imagine if such tournament will be held in Georgia, the whole country will breathe with football. We are more emotional and artistic people. We could have made bigger festival…
Tomorrow, Czech Republic and Portugal will play in Warsaw… Devoted Czechs will play against Portuguese artistic team (including Ronaldo). Both teams are on way to Warsaw – Czechs are coming from Wroclaw and Portuguese team – from Poznan. In my opinion, it will be a very interesting match because both teams play different style. Rosicky who recovered from injury has already arrived from Prague. Besides me, another Georgian will be here – Davit Klibadze. I saw his last name accreditation list.
I went from the city center by Jerusalem Str. and when I crossed Poniatovsky bridge, I saw the stadium. The weather was good and some were fishing and sunbathing on the beach of Wisla river. After being searched, I entered the stadium. There were 4-5 journalists sitting at computers. It was very silent in the hall. I decided to break this silence, entered YouTube and listened to my favorite song – “Gudamakreli” by parson Tavmas Chokheli. Journalists were surprised. Everybody looked at me. One journalist was interested in this song and asked me where it was from?
- It is Georgian. I am from Georgia.
- Are you Georgian? I am from Algeria. My name is Farid and I am a correspondent of bilingual newspaper “Labitag”. I know about Georgians. Many Georgian Mamluks lived in our country. In the 19th century, Georgian mamluk governed Algeria. Egyptians and our people fought Spain and France with him!
Farid was right. Georgians governed North Africa for 300 years – Ali Bey Gurji kidnapped from Samegrelo released Egypt from Turkey. Not only Algerians but also Georgians must be proud of Ibreim Bey Shinjikashvili – he fought the army of Napoleon who said – give me this people and I will conquer the whole world! Ibreim Bey sent his brother money for building church in his village (he was kidnapped from Martkopi)…
UEFA media-officer Mamuka Kvaratskhelia, specially for worldsport.ge from Gdansk
Photos by author
