Before the 2025 Champions League final last May, Jacob Whitehead visited Georgia to tell the story of Paris Saint-Germain winger Khvicha Kvaratskhelia. This is an updated version of that article. As a boy, Khvicha Kvaratskhelia would sit and wait for the apples to grow.

Summers were spent in Tsalenjikha, his family's hometown, cradled by Georgia's Caucasus mountains. Between their house and the river was a green swathe, capped at one end by a wide iron gate. It was a perfect football pitch — but for one feature.

Since anybody recalled, the gate had been topped with decorative ornaments. Kvaratskhelia's father, Badri, a professional player himself, had countless footballs burst by its sharp metal. Remembering how he wept with every puncture, 30 years later he warned Khvicha, his second son.

Soon after, hearing the thump of ball on metal gate, Badri stepped outside to check if his message had been heeded. But something looked different. Now, each spike was crowned by an apple. If a shot hit it? The ball would rebound harmlessly away.

Each following June, Kvaratskhelia would repeat the ritual, plucking the early growers from the tree. He got through fewer balls than his father. Badri, however, had a new problem: "There would never be grass in the yard; because all day, all evening, Khvicha played."

Roots in Samegrelo

Perhaps his son's ingenuity was to be expected. Regional identity is important in Georgia — though he was mainly raised in the country's capital, Tbilisi, Kvaratskhelia's family are Mingrelian, an ethnic group from the country's west.

"People from Samegrelo are smart people," says Badri. "Very smart people, and very creative. We are mountainous people and we behave like it. If we shake your hand, it is done — no signature needed. This is how you need to understand Khvicha, this is the culture in which he was cultivated."

And though Tsalenjikha has a population of just 25,000, its inhabitants have had an outsized influence on Georgian history. The elegiac Terenti Graneli was the nation's most significant poet for 800 years. Meliton Kantaria was the soldier who flew the Soviet flag over the Reichstag in 1945. But, as he looks to lift the Champions League trophy for the second year in a row, the fame of a 25-year-old winger has eclipsed them all.

A Family's Sacrifice

There is a homemade VHS tape in Kvaratskhelia's home in Tbilisi, made by his mother Maka. With Badri often away for his career — he played in Azerbaijan for several years, even winning three caps for the national team — Maka wanted her family to stay connected.

The cassette shows Badri playing for Azerbaijani club FK Shamkir in Champions League qualifying against Latvian side Skonto FC, where he scored a hat-trick. Kvaratskhelia would practise his father's free kicks, over and over again.

Ten years later, he repaid his father for the inspiration. With Kvaratskhelia taking his first steps in professional football, Badri became dangerously ill. Doctors told him he needed to have emergency heart surgery but the family could not afford it. Ultimately Kvaratskhelia's first salary at Lokomotiv Moscow, on increased terms, paid for the surgery that saved his father's life.

"It wasn't even a question to him," says Badri.

Badri was at last season's 5-0 Champions League final win for PSG against Inter, in which his son scored the fourth goal. At moments of high emotion, for his own heart's sake, he has to retreat into the family's box.

The Making of a Superstar

At his quickest, Kvaratskhelia does not run but flows, changing direction like a stream through rapids — as he showed last season with his fine goal against Aston Villa in the Champions League quarter-finals. Axel Disasi was taken underwater, foundering and falling. Kvaratskhelia's shot was a knife thumping a message into the wall; this PSG side is a whole new force with the Georgian as its apex.

His parents had seen it before. "Our first son is five years older," says Maka. "And Khvicha wanted to be with his oldest brother all the time. But when he was five years old, we noticed the way he used to chase him. Khvicha would go straight, at such speed, and could turn 90 degrees, without changing pace."

"Once, Khvicha was given a kimono as a present, and told to try judo," remembers Badri. "It's such a quick sport — if you hesitate for a second, you're on the floor. The coach saw his reflexes, and straight away identified him as a sportsman."

And at Champions League level, dribbling is a form of combat. His first coaches marvelled at the rate of his quick, light touches, which at times look more like fencing than football. It is said that the great technicians fall in love with the ball first, the sport second. Kvaratskhelia was no different.

"When he started walking, he would walk with the ball," says Maka. "When he went to sleep, he would sleep with the ball. There were lots of small concrete pitches in our neighbourhood. In the evenings, with Badri away, I'd search for him, looking in every playground, until I'd find him hundreds of metres away.

"But you know, when he played as a little boy, he never played for fun. If he ever lost the ball, he sprinted back to defend the net, to help the goalie. I think that's why I knew he'd be OK when he moved to Napoli."

From Dinamo to Napoli

It was in Italy, where he moved in 2022, that Kvaratskhelia's dribbling earned a continental reputation. Napoli's fans adored the straight-backed youngster, brow furrowed in concentration, who took smooth, delicate touches as if stroking a violin. First, he was Kvaradona, then he was Kvaravaggio. His art was made amid Tbilisi's brutalism.

"These pitches were small, you're surrounded by six or seven players," says Badri. "So it's very hard to manoeuvre, you have to dribble like that. And then, if you're playing on the asphalt, you need to take care of yourself. You stay so upright because you'll get injured if you go down."

Kvaratskhelia was spotted by Dinamo Tbilisi chief scout Temur Ugrekhelidze as a 10-year-old, playing at a tournament for neighbourhood children. Ugrekhelidze is the first man on many people's journey — from Liverpool goalkeeper Giorgi Mamardashvili, to Saint-Etienne forward Zuriko Davitashvili, to Watford midfielder Giorgi Chakvetadze, all current internationals.

"It was his courage," he recollects. "That was what stood out the most. Whenever he dribbled, he dribbled forward. There are lots of players who will try that once, lose the ball, and be afraid to do it again. But even if he lost the ball five times, he'd try to take his player on, and go ahead."

Meeting His Hero

Kvaratskhelia's first day at Dinamo came on the day that the club opened their new academy. Cristiano Ronaldo travelled from Real Madrid for the unveiling. Years later, a photo from that day emerged after Georgia beat Portugal at the 2024 European Championship in Germany — a pre-teen Kvaratskhelia, craning to be seen, posing alongside his hero.

As Georgia's players sprinted to their fans after that 2-0 win, the most famous in the nation's history, Kvaratskhelia ran to commiserate with his hero.

"He told him: 'I'm really sorry that we beat you,'" says Maka. "He wanted to check that everything was OK, and there was no bad blood between them. And Ronaldo said: 'Good luck, I support you.' Later, Ronaldo took himself into the Georgia changing room to give Khvicha his shirt."

Leading Georgian Football

The 74 per cent of Georgia's senior national team were produced at Dinamo Tbilisi's academy, along with 60 per cent of the under-21s, and 67 per cent of the under-19s. Applications to join the academy trebled in the year after Georgia's success at Euro 2024, built on Kvaratskhelia and Dinamo's shoulders.

Tbilisi is a city of dappled light. Green shoots sprout from cracked concrete; its beauty comes from its untamed edges. Kvaratskhelia's face is emblazoned on billboards leading towards Sameba, the country's largest and most famous cathedral. They advertise Georgian water, now a sponsor of PSG. For a country in the middle of political strife, he is something the population can rally behind.

"Khvicha had so much interest when he was leaving Dinamo Batumi," says Badri. "But when Napoli came in… I told him, 'You'll be playing where Maradona played, sharing the same stadium, changing in the same dressing room. Just sign the contract — go!'"

But unlike his father's hero, Kvaradona is much more shy and insular. His family are back in Georgia — his girlfriend, a medical student, and his baby son.

The Weight of a Nation

"Honestly, he has no life outside of football," says Maka, before describing one exception. On team trips, Kvaratskhelia can often be found reading paperbacks, face screwed in concentration like he's playing — reading detective fiction. Agatha Christie is his favourite.

The escapism makes sense. There is a weight to his existence, the face of a nation's team, the creative burden of one of football's richest clubs.

"He doesn't talk about the pressure to us," says Maka. "He doesn't want us to get nervous. Badri has had two surgeries, and Khvicha knows he's an emotional person. So if he talks to him, he'll worry."

Sometimes, Maka herself worries that Kvaratskhelia does not enjoy his successes enough. After last season's semi-final win against this year's final opponents Arsenal, with PSG's players jumping on the pitch, she noticed her son seemed strangely muted compared to his teammates.

"I wanted him to celebrate more," she says. "And so I asked him: 'Why didn't you celebrate like your teammates?' And he replied: 'Mother, there is nothing to celebrate yet. We still have a final to play.'"

As Kvaratskhelia looks to lift the Champions League trophy for the second year in a row, the fame of a 25-year-old winger from a town of 25,000 has indeed eclipsed the greatest poets and soldiers in Georgian history. From waiting for apples to grow to conquering Europe, his journey embodies the spirit of his mountainous homeland — creative, determined, and forever moving forward.