A look back on the late Dundee playmaker’s Dens Park influence after his sad passing.
When Dundee announced the list of players abruptly axed following administration in 2003, the local paper, the Evening Telegraph, described it as the saddest team sheet in the club’s history.
It was a good line and possibly true though I’d argue another team sheet gives it a good run for its money. It’s from just over three years earlier, at the dawn of the era that set the Dens Park club on a course of financial ruin. When Ivano Bonetti submitted his first XI to referee John Rowbotham at Fir Park in July 2000 before his first competitive game in charge against Motherwell, it was unusual for including eight non-Scots. Not that this is why looking at this list of names now stops you short.
Although it doesn’t seem so long ago, it’s unbearably poignant to note that three of this diverse roll call – Robert Douglas, Barry Smith and Steven Tweed were the only Scots – are no longer with us. Patrizio Billio, cut down in his prime in 2023 after a heart attack aged 48 while playing padel with friends. Fabian Caballero, meanwhile, died just over two years ago in Paraguay at just 46. Again, a heart attack, this time after playing futsal in Paraguay, his adopted homeland.
Georgi Nemsadze at Dundee revisited
And now we learn with equal distress of Georgi Nemsadze’s death aged 54. Again, according to reports from Georgia, the much-celebrated midfielder – he earned 69 caps for his country – suffered a heart attack. You do not have to be in your late 40s or early 50s to be affected by this further tragic and sobering news.
Dundee fans of every vintage paused to reflect on Wednesday, when reports first surfaced. Even those who did not see the talented midfielder play will have heard the tales passed down from elders of a talented team. Despite securing nothing more tangible than a top six finish and a Scottish Cup final appearance, they more often than not left you lavishly entertained. While those such as Claudio Caniggia and Caballero would come and go and in the case of the latter come back again, Nemsadze was at the heart of things, more or less, throughout this period.
Like Caballero, he suffered a serious knee injury, in his case during the 2001-2002 season, but returned to steer Dundee to a first Scottish Cup final since 1964 in the following campaign. He remains the last Dundee player to score in a winning side at Hampden, having struck the only goal of the game in the semi-final victory over Inverness Caledonian Thistle.
Everyone who saw him play, even opposition fans, will have their own memories of his extravagant talents. It’s notable how many messages of condolences flooded social media from supporters of clubs other than Dundee. Those who appreciated someone who was nearly always worth the gate money.
The great Gheorghe Hagi was dubbed the Maradona of the Carpathians. This moniker, although geographically inaccurate, could have sat equally comfortably on Nemsadze’s shoulders. To be more precise, he was the Maradona of the Caucasus region.
The broad expanse of the Black Sea separates Romania from Georgia, but Nemsadze was a close approximation of Hagi. He shared his ability to do the unexpected. Sometimes it seemed like the impossible.
Check out the footage of Nemsadze setting up the second goal of Juan Sara’s hat-trick against Dundee United at Dens in September 2000. Jinking this way and that way, he takes at least three United defenders out of the game before placing a ball into the box for the diving Sara to head home. Then there’s the much-lauded chip over goalkeeper Alan Combe’s head the next time the teams met.
The player laughably credited with an assist – Nemsadze still had so much to do - is instantly recognisable. Long blond hair, slightly stooped and with a number 33 on his back, it’s Caniggia. The Argentina legend once told me that Nemsadze was as good as any club teammate he played with throughout his storied career, Maradona understandably excepted.
Nemsadze it was who assisted Caniggia when the flamboyant striker scored for the first time in Scottish football after coming on as a substitute against Aberdeen. His role in the goal is often forgotten given the focus on Caniggia, but he played his teammate in beautifully. The pair had started on the bench together, the first and probably last time that Dundee had over 100 international caps allocated among substitutes (even Beto Carranza contributed, thanks to his single cap for Argentina).
Nemsadze’s departure was painful. He featured on that depressing list of names when Dundee’s financial chaos engulfed the club, heading out the door along with the likes of Caballero and Fabrizio Ravanelli. But he continued to support Dundee from afar. There were even persistent rumours of his professional football playing son, Vaja , continuing the family’s association by signing for the club.
And then there’s a better sourced story, because I have seen the pictures, of a group of Scottish sports writers carousing with Nemsadze and friends before Scotland’s crucial Euro 2008 qualifying clash against Georgia in Tbilisi in 2007.
Kenny MacDonald, chief football writer at the News of the World at the time, contacted Nemsadze prior to arrival and the now retired footballer invited several reporters out on the eve of the match. “He gave us a tour and set up a big bash for us at night,” recalled MacDonald. “We didn’t pay for anything the whole time.”
Part of the deal was drinking wine from a horn-shaped receptacle known as a kantsi which, because of the shape, can never be laid down on the table. Instead, it gets passed from hand to hand around the guests, to symbolise perpetually warm Georgian hospitality. If Nemsadze was as comfortable in possession of the kantsi as he was with a football, it's a wonder anyone ever got it back off him.