1. Valeri "Vako" Qazaishvili was born on 29 January 1993 and is a Georgian professional footballer who plays as an attacking midfielder for Chinese Super League club Shandong Taishan and the Georgia national team.
18 Facts About Valeri Qazaishvili
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Valeri Qazaishvili then joined the San Jose Earthquakes of Major League Soccer, where he spent four seasons.
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Valeri Qazaishvili made his debut for Georgia's national team in 2014.
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Valeri Qazaishvili made several appearances for Metalurgi Rustavi and Sioni whilst on loan from Saburtalo Tbilisi before joining Dutch side Vitesse in 2011.
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On 31 August 2016, Valeri Qazaishvili joined Polish side Legia Warsaw on a season-long loan.
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On 22 June 2017, Valeri Qazaishvili joined American side San Jose Earthquakes as a Designated Player, the team's youngest ever, after a six-year spell with Vitesse.
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Valeri Qazaishvili was introduced at the club on 10 July 2017, by General Manager Jesse Fioranelli during halftime of San Jose's US Open Cup quarterfinal victory over the LA Galaxy; Georgian basketball player Zaza Pachulia, who was playing for the Golden State Warriors at the time, was present at the ceremony as well.
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On 16 February 2021, Valeri Qazaishvili signed with K League 1 side Ulsan Hyundai.
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On 26 January 2024, Valeri Qazaishvili joined Chinese Super League club Shandong Taishan.
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Valeri Qazaishvili became a regular with the senior squad, and was a part of Georgia's unsuccessful 2018 FIFA World Cup qualification run in 2017.
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Valeri Qazaishvili played in the remaining qualifying matches as well, against Austria, Wales, and Serbia, but Georgia ultimately failed to qualify for the 2018 FIFA World Cup.
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Valeri Qazaishvili was born in Ozurgeti, but grew up in the Vake-Saburtalo District of Tbilisi, the Georgian capital.
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Valeri Qazaishvili's mother is a Georgian teacher, and his father is a factory engineer; he has a younger brother, Beka, who is eighteen months younger than him.
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In 2011, Valeri Qazaishvili married his wife Gvantsa, whom he met growing up in Saburtalo, and their daughter Emilia was born in 2015.
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Valeri Qazaishvili received his US green card in January 2019, which qualifies him as a domestic player for MLS roster purposes.
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Valeri Qazaishvili is close friends with Georgia national teammate Guram Kashia, whom he met playing for Vitesse and who joined him in San Jose in 2018.
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Valeri Qazaishvili said of his move to the Netherlands as a teenager that his friendships with Kashia and fellow Georgian teammate at Vitesse Giorgi Chanturia, whom he knew and had played football with from his childhood, helped what was otherwise a difficult move to a new country at a young age.
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Valeri Qazaishvili is a fan of and influenced by Argentine footballer Lionel Messi and Italian footballer Alessandro del Piero.