When Georges Mikautadze signed for Olympique Lyonnais in the summer of 2024, the move represented an emotional homecoming for the twenty-three year old. It’s a little known fact that the Georgia international striker was actually born and raised in Lyon and had spent several years at the club’s academy before moving away to pursue his professional career elsewhere.
Mikautadze’s parents had moved from Tbilisi to Lyon in the late 1990’s and Georges was born soon after. He took to football from a young age, initially playing at a club named FC Gerland in the shadow of Lyon’s famous old stadium, before his invitation to join the OL academy. After seven years on the books at Lyon, he didn’t quite make the grade and moved on to another local club, Saint-Priest.
In 2016 he decided to leave his hometown and move northwards, to Lorraine, where he joined the academy of FC Metz. A couple of years later, Mikautadze began to feature regularly in the club’s reserve team playing at the Championnat National 3 level. The teenager bagged eight goals for them in the 2019-20 season and also made his top flight debut with a fleeting substitute appearance for the first team in a defeat away to Nice during an injury crisis in December 2019.
Breakthrough in Belgium
Mikautadze was farmed out to FC Metz’ partner club RFC Seraing for the 2020-21 season. Competing in the 1B Pro League (the second tier of the Belgian football pyramid), Mikautadze was an instant success, scoring nineteen times in his twenty-one league matches to finish as joint top scorer. His goals propelled Seraing to second place in the table, securing a play-off for promotion to the top flight. He found the net a further three times in the two-legged play-off against Waasland-Beveren, setting his team on the way to a 6-3 aggregate victory.
He returned to Seraing on loan again the following season to lead the line in their Jupiler Pro League campaign. Mikautadze found the going a lot harder in the top division, but nevertheless he managed nine goals in twenty-eight appearances as his struggling side battled against relegation. Once more they ended up in the playoffs, this time fighting for survival, and once more Mikautadze was decisive, scoring the only goal in the two legs versus RWD Molenbeek to preserve Seraing’s top-flight status.
Having scored an impressive 36 goals in 57 appearances across all competitions during his two seasons with Seraing, the twenty-one year old Mikautadze was finally deemed ready for the Metz first team. Languishing in Ligue 2, Les Grenats looked to the young centre-forward to spearhead their promotion push during the 2022-23 season.
Promotion and a big money move
Mikautadze hit the ground running with a goal on matchday one and never looked back, finishing as divisional top scorer on twenty-three goals with another seven assists to boot. He was elected as Ligue 2 player of the season by the UNFP (the French players union) and his performances were the driving force behind Metz’ promotion to Ligue 1, finishing in second place just three points behind champions Le Havre.
After a flying start to his Ligue 1 career in August 2023, with two goals and an assist in his first three games, Metz decided to cash in on their rapidly emerging superstar. Dutch giants Ajax paid €16 million to secure his services on a five-year contract and so Mikautadze decamped to Amsterdam.
However, Ajax were enduring a nightmare start to their Eredivisie campaign and their latest recruit found it difficult to settle into his new environment. He was drafted straight into the team for the first game following his arrival, a goalless draw away at Fortuna Sittard, but then only featured twice more in the starting eleven before the end of the year.
In total, Georges Mikautadze was only granted 340 minutes of playing time spread across nine appearances during those frustrating four months at Ajax and he failed to register either a goal or an assist. Therefore, the Dutch club decided to loan him back to Metz when the transfer window reopened in January 2024, with a view to building up his top-flight experience.
Metz were involved in a desperate struggle against relegation by the time Mikautadze returned, but his goals gave them a lifeline. He embarked on a run of ten goals in as many matches from late February, which helped keep the out of the automatic drop zone. However, they couldn’t pull clear of the relegation play-off spot and unfortunately succumbed over two legs against Saint-Étienne.
A coming of age in Germany
The summer of 2024 was when Georges Mikautadze’s undoubted talent finally began to capture the attention of a wider audience thanks to his swashbuckling displays in a Georgia shirt at Euro 2024 in Germany. He had first been called into Willy Sagnol’s Georgia squad back in March 2021 when he was tearing it up in the Belgian second division with Seraing and he scored his first international goal in a friendly win against Romania a couple of months later.
Mikautadze has been a regular in the Georgia squad ever since, and he played an important role in helping them qualify for their first ever major tournament, sneaking past Greece on penalties in the play-offs last March. At the finals themselves, Georgia were the surprise package, playing an entertaining brand of counter-attacking football.
Mikautadze found the net in each of their three group games. Firstly he got the equaliser in a 3-1 defeat to Turkey and then he scored from the spot in a 1-1 draw with Czechia that saw the Georgians pick up their first point. They sensationally beat Cristiano Ronaldo’s Portugal 2-0 in their final group game, with Mikautadze again tucking home a penalty. That set up a last sixteen tie with Spain and, although Georgia lost 4-1, Mikautadze had done enough to finish as joint top scorer in Euro 2024 on three goals alongside such luminaries as Harry Kane, Danny Olmo, Cody Gakpo, Jamal Musiala and Ivan Schranz.
Back to his roots
Post tournament, Georges Mikautadze’s much burnished reputation meant that he was suddenly hot property on the transfer market so Metz exercised their option to make his loan move from Ajax permanent. They sensed the opportunity to make quick buck while his stock was high and immediately started to listen to offers for his services.
A deal was initially agreed with AS Monaco but Mikautadze jilted them when Olympique Lyonnais came calling and the chance arose to return to his hometown and boyhood club. He signed a four year contract with Lyon with a transfer fee of around €18.5 million paid to Metz. He became the first Georgian to play for Lyon and he chose 69 as his shirt number in homage to his home département, the Rhône, of which Lyon is the capital.
Unfortunately Mikautadze didn’t get off to the best of starts alongside his fellow Gones as he missed a penalty on his debut at Rennes and failed to find the net in his first five appearances. He has appeared somewhat too eager to get off the mark in his new colours, snatching at chances and shooting when a pass might have been the better option, but no one can doubt his enthusiasm and he has the potential to become a firm fan favourite at the Groupama Stadium.