Holding Midfield
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When Alan Ball took over Man City in the summer of 1995, he found a young Georgian waiting for him at Maine Road. City had narrowly avoided relegation the season before and, now the Premier League was to be reduced to 20 teams for the new season, things were about to get tougher for them. With relegation an increasingly realistic threat, chairman Francis Lee knew his team needed an extra spark, which is where Georgi Kinkladze came in. Born in Tbilisi in 1973, Kinkladze was pushed into football by his father at an early age, enrolling him in Dinamo Tbilisi’s youth sides and making him shuffle around on his knees at home to strengthen his legs. His mother wasn’t encouraged by her husband’s efforts, instead taking him to lessons in mtiuluri, a traditional Georgian ballet – which, bearing in mind his famous “dancing feet”, probably affected his football career just as much. Eventually, he played his way through the youth sides and into the reserves, earning a move to the first team of Mretebi Tbilisi, where he impressed enough to get a move back to the newly independent country’s top club after two seasons. Whether he was simply protecting his [...]
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