greatest successes. Kaladze played in all but one of the 2006 World Cup qualifying matches, where Georgia finished sixth in the group, with Kazakhstan being the only team to finish below them. He played fewer matches during the qualification for Euro 2008 and once again Georgia failed to qualify as they finished in sixth place despite starting their campaign with a 6–0 win over the Faroe Islands. He scored his first ever international goal against Latvia on 6 February 2008 in a friendly which Georgia lost 3–1. On 5 September 2009, Kaladze scored two own goals in a 2010 World Cup qualifying match against Italy within the space of 11 minutes. The match ended 2–0 to Italy. Kaladze was the captain of the national team, until 11 December 2011, when he announced his retirement. The La Gazzetta dello Sport reporter and the president of International Sports Press Association, AIPS [Italian], Gianni Merlo said: "Kakha Kaladze is a man of the history of football in Georgia. In AC Milan he was a pillar of the defense and also a nice and polite man." International goal Scores and results list Georgia's goal tally first. Personal life On 23 May 2001, Kakha Kaladze's younger brother Levan, a medical student, was kidnapped in Georgia, with a ransom of $600,000 demanded. Georgia's president at the time, Eduard Shevardnadze, promised that "everything is being done to locate him". Despite this assurance, the only time that Levan was ever seen was in a video where he was shown blindfolded and begging for help. Following the kidnapping, Kaladze threatened to take up Ukrainian citizenship, but reverted his decision, stating, "There was a time when I thought about quitting the national side completely, but I couldn't do it out of respect for the Georgian people and the fans who come and give us such support." Roughly four years later, on 6 May 2005, Georgian police officers found eight dead bodies in the Svaneti region and it was speculated that Levan was among the dead. On 21 February 2006, Levan was officially identified among the deceased, after tests from FBI experts. The local media claimed that the ransom was paid by Kaladze's family, although another source says that Kaladze's father attempted to meet the kidnappers, who fled as they believed he was followed by the police. Two men were sentenced to prison for the murder: David Asatiani for 25 years