Eighteen years ago, an intelligent 29-year-old French defender called Willy Sagnol helped shackle Cristiano Ronaldo in a World Cup semi-final victory for Les Bleus over Portugal.

On Wednesday evening, Sagnol relived the battle with Ronaldo’s Portugal, this time as coach of Georgia, in their first major international tournament, and won again.

The Portuguese wizard was frustrated at every turn, kicking a water bottle when substituted, as the now 47-year-old Sagnol masterminded Georgia’s greatest sporting triumph since 1991 independence from the Soviet Union.

“It’s still a bit difficult to realise what we have done,” said a stunned-looking Sagnol, who took over Georgia at a low ebb in early 2021 when they had failed to qualify for the previous Euros and the Covid pandemic was raging.

“When we go back to our homes and holidays, I think we are going to realise exactly what we have done. Today I don’t have a lot of words... I am so proud of the players. What an image of Georgia they have shown,” he added.

Sagnol’s men upended Portugal — a team ranked 68 places above them — 2-0 on Wednesday to roar into the knock-out round in their major tournament debut, thanks to goals from Khvicha Kvaratskhelia and Georges Mikautadze.

There are benefits to being tournament underdogs, Sagnol said.

“When you’re the small team, you know you have nothing to lose,” the Frenchman said. “The only thing we said before the competition is whatever happened, we don’t want any regrets after the competition, the regret of maybe not having played our football or maybe not having enjoyed the competition as much as we should have done.

“So, you have no weight on your shoulders. It’s difficult when you’re France, when you’re England, when you’re Spain, when you’re Portugal, because you’re under pressure.

“The only responsibility we had was to make the Georgian nation proud of their players. And I think we’ve done it the best way.”

Sagnol, who used to play for Bayern Munich, has moulded Georgia with a distinctive playing style perhaps reflecting his own roots as a defender and a recognition that his players do not have the pedigree of most others.

Already a party

An even bigger test awaits Georgia when they take on three-time Euro champions Spain in Sunday’s last-16 clash. But whatever the result, though, Sagnol and his men are heroes for Georgia’s 3.7 million people, tens of thousands of whom have come to Germany in a noisy red-and-white army.

Qualification for the Euros in March had already sparked one of the biggest parties in Georgia’s history.

But that was more than matched by the delirious scenes in the capital Tbilisi and elsewhere as Georgians celebrated the win over Portugal long into the early hours of Thursday.

French connection

Sagnol’s leadership is just the latest French connection.

Many Georgian dissidents fled to France after the 1921 Soviet invasion ended a brief independence.

President Salome Zourabichvili is a French-born descendant of those emigres who initially came back to Georgia as an ambassador for Paris. Striker Mikautadze — whose first name is spelt the French Georges not the Georgian Giorgi — was born in Lyon and plays for Metz.

“Georgian football deserves a place among the giants!,” the French embassy in Tbilisi said in a congratulatory message.