Sandro Altunashvili () ( ka, სანდრო ალთუნაშვილი; born 19 May 1997) is a Georgian professional

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kick (football), kicking a football (ball), ball to score a goal (sports), goal. Unqualified, football (word), the word ''football'' generally means the form of football t ...

er who plays as a

midfielder In the sport of association football, a midfielder takes an Glossary of association football terms#O, outfield position primarily in the middle of the pitch. Midfielders may play an exclusively defensive role, breaking up attacks, and are in t ...

for Austrian club

Wolfsberger AC Wolfsberger AC, commonly referred to as Wolfsberg or simply WAC, is an Austrian association football club from Wolfsberg, Carinthia, who currently play in the Austrian Bundesliga. Between the 2007–08 and 2011–12 seasons, Wolfsberger AC enter ...

. He is the two-time winner of the

Erovnuli Liga The Erovnuli Liga ( ka, ეროვნული ლიგა; ) is the top Division (sport), division of professional top tier Association football, football in Georgia (Country), Georgia. Since 1990, it has been organized by the Professional ...

. Altunashvili has also won the

Georgian Cup The Georgian Cup ( ka, საქართველოს თასი) is the main annual association football knockout cup competition in Georgia. It is organized by the Georgian Football Federation (GFF) and is open to clubs of all divisions. Th ...

once and

Super Cup A super cup is a competition, in association football, basketball, handball, volleyball and rugby union which often forms the 'curtain raiser' to a season, and typically involves only two teams who have qualified through success in other competi ...

twice. Individually, he has been twice recognized as the Erovnuli Liga Midfielder of the Year and three times named in Team of the Season.

Club career

Altunashvili started his career at second-division club Saburtalo in 2014. He was a regular player of the team that first gained promotion, gradually established itself and started winning trophies in

. His club secured the league title in 2018. A year later Altunashvili lifted the national Cup as well. This season he was selected in

Team of the Year Team of the Year may refer to: * BBC Sports Personality of the Year Team Award * Canadian Press Team of the Year Award *GPA Gaelic Team of the Year * IRB International Sevens Team of the Year * IRB International Team of the Year * J.League Team of ...

for the first time. In early 2021, Altunashvili moved to

Dinamo Batumi FC Dinamo Batumi ( ka, საფეხბურთო კლუბი დინამო ბათუმი) is a Georgian professional football club based in Batumi, Adjara that competes in the Erovnuli Liga, the top division of the national f ...

on a two-year deal. For two consecutive years he won a nomination for the best midfielder of the league, drawing interest from the national team. In June 2023, he left his native Georgia to join

Austrian Bundesliga The Bundesliga ( , "Federal League"), also known as Admiral Bundesliga for sponsorship reasons, is a professional association football league in Austria and the highest level of the Austrian football league system. The competition decides the A ...

club

on a two-year contract with the option for a further year. On 3 November 2024, Altunashvili scored his first goal in a 2–1 loss at

Austria Klagenfurt Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, of which the capital Vienna is the most populous city and state. Austria is bordered by Ger ...

International career

Altunashvili made his debut for the Georgia national team on 5 September 2021 in a

World Cup qualifier The FIFA World Cup qualification is a set of competitive matches that a national association football team plays in order to qualify for one of the available berths at the final tournament of the men's FIFA World Cup. Qualifying tournaments ar ...

against

Spain Spain, or the Kingdom of Spain, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe with territories in North Africa. Featuring the Punta de Tarifa, southernmost point of continental Europe, it is the largest country in Southern Eur ...

, a 0–4 away loss. He substituted

Giorgi Aburjania Giorgi Aburjania ( ka, გიორგი აბურჯანია, tr, ; born 2 January 1995) is a Georgian professional footballer who plays as a defensive midfielder for Portuguese Primeira Liga club AVS and the Georgia national team. C ...

in the 69th minute. Altunashvili received a call-up for

Euro 2024 The 2024 UEFA European Football Championship, commonly referred to as UEFA Euro 2024 (stylised as UEFA EURO 2024) or simply Euro 2024, was the 17th UEFA European Championship, the quadrennial international football championship organised by U ...

, Georgia's first major international tournament, and took part in two matches.

Career statistics

Honours

Saburtalo Tbilisi *

2021 Like the year 2020, 2021 was also heavily defined by the COVID-19 pandemic, due to the emergence of multiple Variants of SARS-CoV-2, COVID-19 variants. The major global rollout of COVID-19 vaccines, which began at the end of 2020, continued ...

2019 This was the year in which the first known human case of COVID-19 was documented, preceding COVID-19 pandemic, the pandemic which was declared by the World Health Organization the following year. Up to that point, 2019 had been described as ...

Georgian Super Cup The Georgian Super Cup is a super cup tournament in Georgian football. Founded in 1996 as a two-team competition, the current version has been contested since 2023 by four teams, those being the first, second, and third placed teams in the Erovnul ...

: 2020 Dinamo Batumi * Erovnuli Liga:

* Georgian Super Cup: 2022 Individual * Erovnuli Liga Midfielder of the Year: 2021, 2022

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Altunashvili, Sandro 1997 births Living people Men's footballers from Georgia (country) 21st-century sportsmen from Georgia (country) Footballers from Tbilisi Men's association football midfielders UEFA Euro 2024 players Georgia (country) men's international footballers Georgia (country) men's under-21 international footballers Georgia (country) men's youth international footballers Erovnuli Liga players Austrian Football Bundesliga players FC Iberia 1999 players FC Dinamo Batumi players Wolfsberger AC players Expatriate men's footballers from Georgia (country) Expatriate sportspeople from Georgia (country) in Austria Expatriate men's footballers in Austria Recipients of the Order of Honor (Georgia)