He is just 16 years and a few months old. And yet he is already doing remarkable things. Making his Conference League debut, for example, and then, three games later, producing a superb goal, one of pure talent and personality. A dribble in tight spaces, the return onto his right foot and bang. That alone would be enough to mark him out as a player worth watching. Then there is the surname, Kvaratskhelia, and inevitably the spotlight becomes brighter: no, this is not a case of mistaken identity. This is Khvicha’s younger brother, the same Khvicha who has twice lifted European trophies with PSG. Some names carry weight. The similarities in their beginnings are striking, too. Tornike is a 2010-born player, and he made his Dinamo Tbilisi debut at the same age as his older brother. The position is the same. The stronger foot, too. And the quality of certain goals, like the one scored on Thursday night against Zalgiris Vilnius – a 3-0 win in Georgia in the first leg of the second qualifying round – invites the comparison that perhaps should be resisted most of all: the premature one, shaped by fascination and the pull of a story rather than by facts still waiting to be written. Even so, the footage of this Conference League solo run is already spreading.
Tornike is a left winger who likes to dribble, and in Georgia everyone is already paying close attention – on social media as well, where he has 55,000 Instagram followers despite his fairly restrained presence there – while Europe’s biggest clubs, Bayern and PSG above all, are monitoring him carefully ahead of the next step. The idea of seeing him alongside his older brother remains, for now, pure fantasy, yet Khvicha has been Kvaratskhelia Junior’s biggest supporter for years: “Keep an eye on him, he’s very, very good,” he said back when he was still wearing the Napoli shirt. “He’s playing in Georgia now and he’s really talented.” At the time, in 2023, those words still belonged to the category of praise reserved for a child. A child who, however, has grown quickly. Very quickly. And who is already ready to show the quality of his game. Perhaps, in the coming weeks, the Conference League qualifiers will have a few more people following them.