Merani Martvili

In May 2016, a side from a town of barely 6,000 people walked out for the final of the Georgian Cup and gave Torpedo Kutaisi a real game before losing 1-2. Reaching a national final was already unusual for Merani Martvili — the club had spent most of its short existence shuttling around the second tier — and the defeat became the closest thing it has to a defining night.

The club took shape in 2006, when Fridon Indzhia, a former Georgian minister of communications, put money and organisation behind a team carrying a name long associated with football in Martvili; earlier sides under similar names had represented the town back in Soviet times, though the current club traces no direct line to them. Home games are played at the stadium named after Murtaz Khurtsilava, the Dinamo Tbilisi defender who won the Soviet Cup and represented the USSR at the 1966 World Cup — a stadium that seats under 2,000, modest even by the standards of Georgia's regional grounds.

Merani's best run through the leagues came in 2010/11, when second place in the second division earned promotion to Erovnuli Liga for the following season; the club finished eighth in the championship group and dropped back down. It found its level lower still for a stretch, winning Liga 3 in 2018 before working its way back up to the second tier by 2020.

Few players who passed through Martvili went on to bigger things, but Giorgi Mchedlishvili did. He played for Merani in the 2012/13 season as a young defender, then moved on to Dinamo Tbilisi, Ventspils, Torpedo Kutaisi and Samtredia, collecting a Georgian championship and a Georgian Cup along the way — honours the club that gave him his start has still never won.