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In a dazzling form for a month, the striker of OL Georges Mikautadze seems to have (finally) digested his return to “his” city of Lyon, with the weight of number 69 on the back. Forgotten the missed penalty in Rennes in the first game of the season. From now on, he seems to be launched with this symbol: his last goal against Strasbourg places him at the top of Lyon scorers, in front … Alexandre Lacazette. Is the passage of power on the way?
From a Thursday stunning a holder against Bucharest (2 goals and 2 assists) to meet after, started on the bench but being just as decisive against Le Havre (1 goal and 2 assists) … A recent chain which says everything about Georges Mikautadze, now fully in his place at OL, without moods or loss of efficiency.
The 24 -year -old Georgian could have headed after losing his status from one match to another, especially after the European recital delivered in the first. But in an interview area, where he will pass in front of microphones and cameras, the attacker ensures each time with the same freshness and desire. Which makes Ludowic Clément say, a supporter of OL: “Yes, we were worried, but I see that he is starting to realize that he is the worthy successor to Lacazette (the” general “scored 13 goals this season, against 14 for the Georgian, editor's note). We have a good draw with a guy that we feel invested with a mission.
Finally, Mikautadze takes its place. Lightened by the weight of a return finally heavy, in “his” city, his training club and with his friends. Amaury Barlet, his trainer at the Academy where he spent seven years between 2008 and 2015, testified: “I try to put myself in his place. He has a desire to make his whole family around him, after being proud to sign professional, his kid's dream. It was something very important for him, for his relatives.” It was also necessary to digest this missed penalty against Rennes, at the opening of the season: “This weight was this desire to score this goal, to celebrate this goal with its supporters in Lyon,” said Barlet. “And that weight, indeed, he was heavy. He removed it now.”
Barred by a certain Amine Gouiri
Because the link has had a hard time going back since its return in July 2024, nine years after leaving the Gerland Academy. “Unconsciously, there is a pressure that has settled in relation to the expectations of this club,” extends the Lyon technician. “It is really a big club compared to what he has known now, between his loans in Seraing and then at Ajax, where he has played very little. He is in a club in which there are perhaps expectations. Expectations with an audience that is not necessarily very patient, as in all big clubs. But today, he shows that he is capable of being decisive.”
Spotted at FC Gerland in the 7th arrondissement of Lyon – place of the training center for professionals and the academy in Tola Vologe, right next to the stadium -, Georges Mikautadze will pass a seven -year term with young Lyonnais before being dismissed. The fault with better than him at the time: a certain Amine Gouiri, eight months older.
“Today, inevitably, we can say that the decision was not the right one, but we must put in the context of the time,” recalls Jean-François Vulliez, now a assistant coach at AC Horsens (D2 Danish) and at the Director of the Center. “Georges already had technical qualities, but was still a little immature in his game and he was behind Amine. There was also clearly a morphological deficit. Fortunately for him, he developed and proved that he could play at the highest level.”
“After having experienced this course, it seems to me that he can only go upwards”
Like Nabil Fékir, also in his time not noted by the Lyonnais trainers, Mikautadze landed in Saint-Priest, the flagship club for the training of young people in the Lyon agglomeration. After two years, President Patrick Gonzalez takes him to test in Metz. He signed his first professional contract there in 2019, and will play his first professional match on December 7 of the same year.
The Franco-Géorgian perfectly training by a loan to the RFC Seraing in Belgium, before putting the crampons again for FC Metz, where he continues two good seasons including that of 2022-23, where he finished top a league 2 goals with 23 goals. After a round trip to Ajax, Mikautadze returns to Lorraine before choosing, from several proposals (Lens, Monaco and other European clubs), to return home. “The player he is now also comes from this mind forged by this course,” says Vulliez. “It was difficult for him, since he left the club, finally, when we were in Gerland. In addition, he who is from Gerland … It is something he knew how to digest.”
There is also resilience in the course of one of the three Georgians of the French championship: “He is a boy whom I have always known very, very competitive and, in fact, very passionate about the game, by football,” said Amaury Barlet. “That's why I say, no matter how he plays, he is a boy who wants to play, who wants to win, who wants to hold, who wants to score goals. He is a boy who did not ask himself ten thousand questions compared to the level he played, and that was his strength. Today, that is what built him on the mental level too. After having experienced this course.
“We all hope that the rocket is launched”
The top is now OL, where it comes back to impose itself little by little at the end of winter. Georges Mikautadze gets a path, gently but in serial scorer. Paulo Fonseca sees it as a notable evolution: “I do not ask anything different from Georges. His progression reflects that of the team: the team creates occasions for the brand attacker,” posed his coach on Thursday. “When I arrived, he was more instinctive, wild, and he always wanted to touch the ball. We worked on his patience, on waiting for the right time to touch the ball. He has the capacity to evolve in different spaces.”
The last word goes to Amaury Barlet: “We all hope that the rocket is launched. Personally, it is a satisfaction, a pride to say Here, I knew him smaller and somewhere, he won in my club. It is certain that when you have young people we had the chance to meet succeed, it is a pride. There is this share of affect when these young people enter the lawn, whether at the time Gerland, or today to Groupama. The particularity of Georges is that he had to go to see other things so that he could come back to have fun on the lawn of the large stadium. “
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