Albania at EURO 2016

[Albo_eagle]

http://www.gazzetta.it/Calcio/Serie-A/I ... 9212.shtml

Any Italian speakers to translate this? The google translate version is very bad.

Ka shfry ne nje postim ne facebook pasi De Biasi ka than ne nje interviste se Manaj i ahkruan cdo dite qe luan per ta thirre te kombetarja e madhe dhe ky thot se vetem nje here i ka shkruajtur pas ndeshjes me Serbine dhe se nuk e shet ftyren e zemren per vendin e tij dhe se ka treguar gjithnje perkushtim per fanellen e kombetareve. Menyra se si menaxhon kto talentet De Biasi le shume per te deshiruar ...

Falemderit. De Biasi should be very happy that a 18 year old highly rated Inter Milan player is desperate to play for Albania. He needs to be capped as soon as possible.

[Albo_eagle]

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=818928878205037

I really like Rey Manaj. De Biasi can go f*** himself. If Manaj begins starting regularly for Inter and scoring aswell then he will be the 'special' player that Albanians have been waiting for like Shaqiri and Januzaj. De Biasi will then be apologizing to him. Manaj basically watched the Serbia game and saw in offense we offered nothing and texted De Biasi that he is available for Armenia. Great Stuff.

Manaj is loved by Mancini. Mancini has always like young players and also has a thing for managing troubled players. H egave Balotelli his debut and brought him to City, had many arguments with Tevez and made him captain, managed Ibra, Manaj is said to be a rebel so maybe Mancini feels like he can be a father figure to these players or something. I have a really good feeling about Manaj.

[Blochin]

Hey, I am chief editor of Swiss football magazin ZWÖlF. We are working on a piece on Albania's recent success, which is also based on the Swiss grown players. Now we have some questions and we'll be happy to read your thoughts.

1. The current Albanian national team consists mostly of players having grown up abroad (Switzerland). How is this perceived in Albania? Is there a discussion about that matter?

2. Does the Albanian league (not only Skenderbeu) benefit in any way from the national team's success? If so, how? Or is the FSHF's only goal to form a competitive national team, no matter where the players come from?

3. A national team cannot just rely on other nations producing talents from them. Are there any efforts to improve the youth ranks? If so, in what way?

Thank you very much and best regards from Zurich!

[Berti]

Personally speaking the Swiss discussion is somewhat sceptical. General feeling is that we get the players that Switzerland doesn't need. After all you have the best Albanians and generally get first choice. But the overall long term hope does not lay there. Italy and Germany has taken over as talent production in terms of quality (you still hold the quantity). Opinion was far stronger on this matter round the times when we played each other and we realised the pool depth of Albanian players in your NT of all ages.
Now I'd say no one cares and neither should Switzerland as we haven't really taken anyone that would be considered first choice there.

In regards to the Albanian league the benefits are minimal to non existent. The level of proffesionalism of Albanian clubs is pathetic and youth production is minimal and only hope of progression is when they move abroad very young, so no benefit at all apart from motivation.
Albania has much bigger priorities than a long term investment in youth football as it currently lacks any sort of facilities so like any other Balkan country the development has to come from abroad.

[artan]

Hey, I am chief editor of Swiss football magazin ZWÖlF. We are working on a piece on Albania's recent success, which is also based on the Swiss grown players. Now we have some questions and we'll be happy to read your thoughts.

1. The current Albanian national team consists mostly of players having grown up abroad (Switzerland). How is this perceived in Albania? Is there a discussion about that matter?

2. Does the Albanian league (not only Skenderbeu) benefit in any way from the national team's success? If so, how? Or is the FSHF's only goal to form a competitive national team, no matter where the players come from?

3. A national team cannot just rely on other nations producing talents from them. Are there any efforts to improve the youth ranks? If so, in what way?

Thank you very much and best regards from Zurich!

1. Albanians view them more as Albanians from Kosova rather than Swiss Albanians. This doesn't bother Albanians as most of us have family members that have emigrated to the West so no one really notices. Now the NT is being seen as a "Greater Albanian" NT as there's players with origins from Albania, Kosova and now even Macedonia.

2. Yes, as there's more money being poured into the federation which will have a trickle down effect. For example our home stadium (Elbasan Arena) was recently renovated for something like 3million euros and is now in great condition. This was home to KF Elbasani which played there until they got relegated. Now there's renovations for Loro Borici stadium in Shkoder for around 12million euros which will make it the best stadium in the country and will be home to the local Superliga side. The other day our PM promised a new stadium in Tirana which will probably be the most expensive and will probably eventually be home to KF Partizani in the Superliga(If it gets built). These stadiums should improve the infrastructure of the league and there has been some other minor projects. The stadiums in Albania used to be without a doubt the worst in Europe and that is quickly changing.

I'd say the main goal for the FSHF is to pick the best Albanian players wherever they're from and any ethnic Albanian player that is good enough will get interest. This hasn't been the case until recently though.

[Albanian Damien]

Hey, I am chief editor of Swiss football magazin ZWÖlF. We are working on a piece on Albania's recent success, which is also based on the Swiss grown players. Now we have some questions and we'll be happy to read your thoughts.

1. The current Albanian national team consists mostly of players having grown up abroad (Switzerland). How is this perceived in Albania? Is there a discussion about that matter?

2. Does the Albanian league (not only Skenderbeu) benefit in any way from the national team's success? If so, how? Or is the FSHF's only goal to form a competitive national team, no matter where the players come from?

3. A national team cannot just rely on other nations producing talents from them. Are there any efforts to improve the youth ranks? If so, in what way?

Thank you very much and best regards from Zurich!

Or so you think as long as they speak their language, Albanians will never forget their home:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6hye3iRZIA

[Aurora Bulkualis]

Well the better the NT does, as artan mentioned, the more money will be invested in infrastructure. After communism, club football was primarily used as a way of making money through match fixing and illegal bets. Ideally, investments should come first, then results, but it is what it is.

[Plako]

Hey, I am chief editor of Swiss football magazin ZWÖlF. We are working on a piece on Albania's recent success, which is also based on the Swiss grown players. Now we have some questions and we'll be happy to read your thoughts.

1. The current Albanian national team consists mostly of players having grown up abroad (Switzerland). How is this perceived in Albania? Is there a discussion about that matter?

2. Does the Albanian league (not only Skenderbeu) benefit in any way from the national team's success? If so, how? Or is the FSHF's only goal to form a competitive national team, no matter where the players come from?

3. A national team cannot just rely on other nations producing talents from them. Are there any efforts to improve the youth ranks? If so, in what way?

Thank you very much and best regards from Zurich!

Welcome to the forum Blochin and congrats on qualifying for another Euro.

1. This is a topic that has dominated albanian football ever since the emergence of the Swiss-Albanian Trio of Behrami-Xhaka-Shaqiri and it became really heated when Adnan Januzaj was about to pick between Belgium and Albania right before the WC in Brazil. The general perception among fans is that Albania is the fallback/second choice for a lot of these players and is used at times as leverage by these players to get a call up from their first choice teams (think Januzaj pressuring Belgium right before the 2014 WC or Mustafi and Germany). There are ethnic Albanian players who have been eligible to play for countries other than Albania and Lorik Cana (current captain) is the only one who is viewed as having picked Albania over the Swiss or the French (think those are the other NTs he was eligible to play for)

That perception has changed over the last year though as more Swiss grown players are picking Albania and the hesitation that the previous players had over picking Albania seems to have dissipated. I think a major factor was our match against Serbia, that for many Albanian players who hail from Kosova and FYROM is more than a simple football match due to the ethnic conflict and the decade long oppression of the Albanians in Yugoslavia and then Serbia. Albanians that hail from Kosova are some of the most nationalistic/patriotic Albanians having been in the frontline of our struggle for the establishment of the modern Albanan nation. Many Albanians who grow up in Western Europe still maintain a very strong national consciousness and the national team has become a symbol of the unity of all Albanians in the Balkans (our century long dream is to unite all Albanians in one state).

The Swiss-Albanians players are viewed by some as traitors to our national cause but I would say most view them as professional footballers who picked the country that contributed the most in their development as football players. From a pragmatic viewpoint it makes sense to Pick Switzerland or Germany over Albania as we don't usually qualify for any major tournaments and it is problem not just for Albanian players but a universal phenomenon I'd say (German-born American players picking to play for the US after not having made the Germant NT)

2. The Albanian league (not only Skenderbeu) benefits from our national team success in that foreign players view it as a n attractive option to playing in Europe and a springboard to a better league. For example Albanian league's top players usually move to Croatia and if they excel there they can move to Serie A or the Bundesliga. This has been the path for several players. We now have several talented players from Africa and South America who play in Superliga and there is a strong contingent of players from former Yugoslavia (Serbia, Montenegro and Crotatia)

Obviously the goal of the Albanian FA is to have the strongest NT possible and the general perception is that at the moment those players will be coming from abroad in the near future from the countries with large Albanian emigrant population (Switzerland, Germany, Italy and Greece). Albanian do not view Albanians from abroad unfavorably and as long as a player has Albanian family origins he will be welcome to the NT.

3. There is a sense of despair for the lack of talents coming up from the Albanian Superliga. There used to be a time when the Superliga used to produce players who eventually moved on to the Bundesliga or Serie A but we have not produced such players in over a decade now. There is a certain sense of optimism now with Skenderbeu qualifying for the EL group stage but there is still a lot of work to be done with in youth ranks. The old system where each team had youth teams all the way down to U-12 has been destroyed and privately run academies (pay for play) have replaced them and it has failed so far.

The youth academies of the three Tirana clubs (Partizani, Tirana and DInamo) have been pretty much destroyed after all three clubs lost their training grounds. Partizani is trying to build a new training ground but Dinamo (18 time champions) look destined to become irrelevant after being ousted from their training by the Albanian Olympic Committee, losing their owner and their ever dwindling fanbase. These were the best run football academies in Albania during the Communist regime and produced the majority of our NT players however they have fallen in hard times and the new clubs that have risen (Skenderberu and Kukesi) do not have academies but simply bring in players by paying the best wages in the league. Partizani and Dinamo were under the tutelage of the Army and Police forces respectively so they could afford to have the best academies whereas now that teams are run for profit they don't spend money in developing players as you won't see a return in your investments for years to come. The Albanian FA has been trying to tackle all these issues but it's been futile so far. I don't think they have a plan/strategy in place. At the moment they are simply basking the glory of Skenderbeu and the NT qualification for the Euros.

[Blochin]

You guys are awesome!

Thanks so much for your great help!!

[Berti]

An English link to your article would be much appreciated. And you can hang around too sometimes and give us any updates on any up and coming Swiss Albos
We then can negotiate who chooses whom