Nodar Akhalkatsi ( ka, ნოდარ ახალკაცი; 2 January 1938 – 24 January 1998) was a professional

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

manager from

Georgia Georgia most commonly refers to: * Georgia (country), a country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia * Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the Southeast United States Georgia may also refer to: Places Historical states and entities * Related to the ...

Coaching career

Akhalkatsi coached

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

club

Dinamo Tbilisi Dinamo Tbilisi is a sports club from Tbilisi, Georgia. It was founded in 1925. Among its highest honors, is the European trophy earned by its football team which won the Cup Winners' Cup in 1981, beating FC Carl Zeiss Jena of East Germany 2–1 ...

to the USSR league championship in 1978, with a side that contained the likes of

David Kipiani David Kipiani ( ka, დავით ყიფიანი; 18 November 1951 – 17 September 2001) was a Georgian football midfielder and manager. Kipiani principally played as a playmaker and is considered one of Georgia's greatest player ...

Ramaz Shengelia Ramaz Shengelia ( ka, რამაზ შენგელია; 1 January 1957 – 21 June 2012) was a Georgian and Soviet football player. Club career Born in Kutaisi, Shengelia started career in his hometown club Torpedo Kutaisi in 1968. He spe ...

Vitaly Daraselia Vitaly Kukhinovich Daraselia ( ka, ვიტალი დარასელია; 9 January 1957 – 13 December 1982) was a Georgian football player. Playing career Club Daraselia was born to a Georgian father and Abkhaz mother on 9 January 1 ...

Tengiz Sulakvelidze Tengiz Grigoriyevich Sulakvelidze ( ka, თენგიზ სულაქველიძე; born 23 July 1956 in Kutaisi) is a former Georgian footballer. Honours * International Master of Sports: 1980. *Honored Master of Sports of the USS ...

and Aleksandr Chivadze, all of whom were regular Soviet internationals. The team were renowned for their swashbuckling style of football and attack-minded approach. The following year, Dinamo entered the

European Cup The UEFA Champions League (abbreviated as UCL, or sometimes, UEFA CL) is an annual club football competition organised by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) and contested by top-division European clubs, deciding the competit ...

and stunned the reigning champions

Liverpool Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the 10th largest English district by population and its metropolitan area is the fifth largest in the United Kingdom, with a popul ...

with an impressive 3–0 win in the first round. However, they were eliminated by

West German West Germany is the colloquial term used to indicate the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG; german: Bundesrepublik Deutschland , BRD) between its formation on 23 May 1949 and the German reunification through the accession of East Germany on 3 O ...

side

Hamburg (male), (female) en, Hamburger(s), Hamburgian(s) , timezone1 = Central (CET) , utc_offset1 = +1 , timezone1_DST = Central (CEST) , utc_offset1_DST = +2 , postal ...

in their next tie. Two years later, Akhalkatsi enjoyed his finest moment as a manager when he guided Dinamo to victory in the 1981 Cup Winners' Cup final, beating

East German East Germany, officially the German Democratic Republic (GDR; german: Deutsche Demokratische Republik, , DDR, ), was a country that existed from its creation on 7 October 1949 until its dissolution on 3 October 1990. In these years the state ...

outfit Carl Zeiss Jena in

Düsseldorf Düsseldorf ( , , ; often in English sources; Low Franconian and Ripuarian: ''Düsseldörp'' ; archaic nl, Dusseldorp ) is the capital city of North Rhine-Westphalia, the most populous state of Germany. It is the second-largest city in th ...

Rheinstadion The Rheinstadion () was a multi-purpose stadium, in Düsseldorf, Germany. The stadium was built, near the Rhine, in 1926 and held 54,000 people at the end of its life. It was the home ground for Fortuna Düsseldorf from 1953 to 1970 and 1972–2 ...

. Dinamo had won the 1979

Soviet Cup The Soviet Cup, or USSR Cup (russian: Кубок СССР),, be, Кубак СССР, uz, СССР Кубоги, kk, КСРО Кубогы, ka, სსრკ თასი, az, ССРИ кубоку, lt, TSRS taurė, ro, Cupa URSS (Moldova ...

to gain admittance to the competition, beating

FC Dynamo Moscow FC Dynamo Moscow (''FC Dynamo Moskva'', russian: Дина́мо Москва́ ) is a Russian football club based in Moscow. Dynamo returned to the Russian Premier League for the 2017–18 season after one season in the second-tier Russian Footb ...

on penalties in the final. Akhalkatsi was a member of USSR manager

Konstantin Beskov Konstantin Ivanovich Beskov (russian: Константи́н Ива́нович Бе́сков; 18 November 1920 – 6 May 2006) was a Soviet/Russian footballer and coach. Beskov was born in Moscow. He played for Dynamo Moscow as forward, sc ...

's coaching staff at the

1982 World Cup The 1982 FIFA World Cup was the 12th FIFA World Cup, a quadrennial football tournament for men's senior national teams, and was played in Spain between 13 June and 11 July 1982. The tournament was won by Italy, who defeated West Germany 3–1 i ...

in Spain, forming a three-man technical team with Beskov and

Dynamo Kiev Football Club Dynamo Kyiv (, ) is a Ukrainian professional football club based in Kyiv. Founded in 1927 as a Kyivan football team of republican branch of the bigger Soviet Dynamo Sports Society, the club as a separate business entity was officia ...

's coach

Valeriy Lobanovskyi Valeriy Vasylyovych Lobanovskyi ( uk, Вале́рій Васи́льович Лобано́вський ; russian: Вале́рий Васи́льевич Лобано́вский; 6 January 1939 – 13 May 2002) was а Ukrainian football playe ...

After retirement

In the early 1990s, Akhalkatsi was one of the integral figures in the formation of the Georgian Football Federation after the republic achieved independence from the

USSR The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...

. He was the organisation's president from 1990 to 1998. He died of a heart attack on his way to

Tbilisi Airport Shota Rustaveli Tbilisi International Airport ( ka, თბილისის შოთა რუსთაველის სახელობის საერთაშორისო აეროპორტი) , formerly ''Novo Alexeyevka In ...

, from where he intended to fly to

Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million ...

to participate in the CIS Cup, on 24 January 1998, aged 60. In 2008, for his contributions to association football, Akhalkatsi became the recipient (posthumously) of the

FIFA Order of Merit The FIFA Order of Merit is the highest honour awarded by FIFA. The award is presented at the annual FIFA congress. It is normally awarded to people who are considered to have made a significant contribution to :association football. At FIFA's ce ...

, the highest honour awarded by

FIFA FIFA (; stands for ''Fédération Internationale de Football Association'' ( French), meaning International Association Football Federation ) is the international governing body of association football, beach football and futsal. It was found ...

. His son, Nodar Akhalkatsi junior, was the president of the

Georgian Football Federation The Georgian Football Federation ( GFF; ka, საქართველოს ფეხბურთის ფედერაცია, ''sakartvelos pekhburtis pederatsia'') was founded in 1936. Based in Tbilisi, it was part of the Football Fede ...

from June 2005 to September 2009.

Honours

Manager

Soviet Top League The Soviet Top League, known after 1970 as the Higher League (russian: Чемпионат СССР по футболу: Высшая лига), served as the top division of Soviet Union football from 1936 until 1991. The professional top level ...

**Winner (1):

1978 Events January * January 1 – Air India Flight 855, a Boeing 747 passenger jet, crashes off the coast of Bombay, killing 213. * January 5 – Bülent Ecevit, of Republican People's Party, CHP, forms the new government of Turkey (42nd go ...

**Runner-up (1):

1977 Events January * January 8 – Three bombs explode in Moscow within 37 minutes, killing seven. The bombings are attributed to an Armenian separatist group. * January 10 – Mount Nyiragongo erupts in eastern Zaire (now the Democratic R ...

**Winner (2):

1976 Events January * January 3 – The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights enters into force. * January 5 – The Pol Pot regime proclaims a new constitution for Democratic Kampuchea. * January 11 – The 1976 Phila ...

1979 Events January * January 1 ** United Nations Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim heralds the start of the ''International Year of the Child''. Many musicians donate to the ''Music for UNICEF Concert'' fund, among them ABBA, who write the song ...

**Runner-up (1):

1980 Events January * January 4 – U.S. President Jimmy Carter proclaims a grain embargo against the USSR with the support of the European Commission. * January 6 – Global Positioning System time epoch begins at 00:00 UTC. * January 9 – ...

UEFA Cup Winners' Cup The UEFA Cup Winners' Cup was a European football club competition contested annually by the winners of domestic cup competitions. The cup was, chronologically, the second seasonal inter-European club competition organised by UEFA. The tournam ...

**Winner (1): 1980–81

External links

Managerial statistics

''Source''Nodar Akhalkatsi coaching profile
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References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Akhalkatsi 1938 births 1998 deaths Men's footballers from Georgia (country) Soviet men's footballers Soviet football managers Football managers from Georgia (country) FC Dinamo Tbilisi managers Footballers from Tbilisi FC Locomotive Tbilisi players Men's association football forwards