Nodar Akhalkatsi

Who was Nodar Akhalkatsi?

Nodar Akhalkatsi was a professional football manager from Georgia.

Akhalkatsi coached Soviet club Dinamo Tbilisi to the USSR league championship in 1978, with a side that contained the likes of David Kipiani, Ramaz Shengelia, Vitaly Daraselia, Tengiz Sulakvelidze 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 and stunned the reigning champions Liverpool with an impressive 3-0 win in the first round. However, they were eliminated by West German side Hamburg 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 outfit Carl Zeiss Jena in Düsseldorf's Rheinstadion. Dinamo had won the 1979 Soviet Cup to gain admittance to the competition, beating FC Dynamo Moscow on penalties in the final.

Akhalkatsi was a member of USSR manager Konstantin Beskov's coaching staff at the 1982 World Cup in Spain, forming a three-man technical team with Beskov and Dynamo Kiev's legendary coach Valeriy Lobanovskyi.