Hello and welcome back, clearly Georgia is on your mind! How did we leave it last time? Well we’d took an unfortunate defeat away from home to England thanks to a lonely own-goal. You can catch up here. It left the table looking like this:

Ideally, we need to beat England at home and hope they meet some misfortune against Iceland or Macedonia. Big news to start out though, Kinkladze has joined the elite.

Our conservative approach to tactics sees us squeeze past Macedonia. That said Shota has had a nightmare really.

We remain 2^nd as you’d expect. Next up Estonia, who only have one real player in Mart Poom. Again, coming up against a decent ‘keeper, Shota is less effective.

Big Kav is back properly now though so at least we have backup.

We’re doing well so clearly it’s time for the game to attempt to sabotage us.

The oldest of the brothers three will be missing some serious time. Oh what the f***. Come on.

Kav breaks more bones and will be out for a sustained time. At least its just pre-season he’ll miss. Lobby has new club, he joins Gela at Spurs.

Next up it’s the most important game of the remaining ones. It’s England. I look at their squad, they’ve decided to give the 2^nd choice ‘keeper a go and for some reason Ben Thatcher is in there. They still have Owen and Shearer up top.

What a result! Note to self, must take Shota off penalties. Hopefully that one less goal scored doesn’t come to haunt us. We didn’t score a single goal once Richard Wright entered the field of play.

What an effort. Thanks to England for selecting Teale, Thatcher, Joseph, Rogers et al.

I suspect those 7 goals will be too many to recover. Next up, San Marino. We must score loads as England have them left to play too. The squad is depleted.

It matters not, we score 6. But we should have had at least 3 more. Shota only managed a penalty on target from 7 shots.

Angry Ketsbaia is suspended again. The close season sees Archil sign for Sao Paulo and Srelia leave Celtic for Sunderland and the Premier League. A retirement sees my son appear:

The Sultan of Swing, The King of Kok. Welcome to the national side son. Knowing how close we are to qualifying, the game does its thing.

Christ. Can we not get a break? Yes, yes we can. Come on!!!!

More big moves for my big Georgian stars.

Another reluctant win against Macedonia.

One more win and we’ll go through to the World Cup as the best 2^nd placed side. F***.

It’s between big Kav and Estonia. Poom is injured, so we’ll be facing off against an all-grey Estonia side. Get in!!!!

Oooofff. There it is. Big Kav with a trick and we’re off to the World Cup!!! Srelia will miss the opening game which makes it a bittersweet feeling. Hopefully the first game is an easy one.

And there it is:

We took England all the way, the lack of goals against Macedonia and the first Estonia game have cost us 1^st place. But to get ourselves in this position in a group with England is unreal. Do join us in 2002 when we’ll find out what we’ll be facing at Japan 2002!