Albanian Football Forum

That's great - I didn't know that. Thanks.

Are there any other interesting/unusual football phrases in Albanian? Here are a few in English:

• he couldn't hit a barn door with a beach ball (about a bad striker)

• he has ghosted into the box (about a player who moved into the box without being noticed)

• it's a game of two halves (about a game in which one team was on top in the first half, and then the other team was on top in the second)

Thanks!

languageoffootball wrote:I'd be particularly interested, for example, if there are any phrases or cliches relating to football that you guys have. Like in English you can say 'it's a game of two halves' or you can describe football as 'the beautiful game', or you can talk about a player getting 'nutmegged', that kind of thing.

The answers given after you posted this are just tongue in cheek so just ignore them.

Later this evening I'll pm you with serious detailed answers to all your questions.

Guys, that's not a way to treat a guest.

Rich, I will provide detailed answers to all your questions when I get a bit time off as I am pretty tied up at work these days.


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Brother you picked the wrong place to get serious/useful/truthful answers.

languageoffootball wrote:Thanks for that. Is he known by any particular nickname? Does anyone else in the squad have a nickname?

Yes. Erivn "Karuci" Bulku.

We gave him that name because of all the charitable work he's done for the less fortunate in Karuci, Namibia. They've even built a statue for him outside the soccer academy he opened up over there.

Thanks for that. Is he known by any particular nickname? Does anyone else in the squad have a nickname?

We take serious pride in our leader Ervin Bulku. You can find a golden statue of him outside many of our stadiums, and posters of him during games. He is our leader on and off the field. Many of our players playing in the youth ranks look up to him and hope they can achieve what Bulku has achieved one day.

I'd be particularly interested, for example, if there are any phrases or cliches relating to football that you guys have. Like in English you can say 'it's a game of two halves' or you can describe football as 'the beautiful game', or you can talk about a player getting 'nutmegged', that kind of thing.

Thank you, that's fascinating insight.

If anyone has anything to add, please do. I'd love to get as much information about your language and your football team as possible, it really is very interesting to me.

1) Tosk/Gheg...South speak Tosk, North speak Gheg...Not really an issue in understanding each others dialect but now with many players being born outside Albania, their Albanian is slightly less developed and adding the dialect to that makes matters a bit more complicated. Kaçe and Rama communicated in English during the Armenia friendly match.

2) Një komb Një gjuhe Një flamur...It means one country, one language, one flag. The desire to unify all Albanian land, and not to let people seperate us, like Kosova has been given another flag ect ect. It is a phrase to symbolise and call for our unification. Our main fan group Tifozat Kuq e Zi (TKZ) use it as their slogan.

3) Shqipëri Etnike..Means Greater Albania, the desire of the Albanians to unify the Republic of Albania, Malesia, Kosova, Lugina, Ilirida and Çameria in one Albanian state. This is used at every single game, and by all diaspora, even in England when Albanians gather together to watch the games it is chanted non stop. It os linked to the phrase above which i mentioned.

4) shkijet...look at what happened when we played them in beograd. The flag of the shkije, Greece and Macedonia is usually burned by our fans and righrfully so. Read about the Ballistet if you want to know what they do in Macedonia.

5) Our language is one of the oldest in the world. It is derived from Ilyrian, search up the Ilyrians if you want to know more.