Albanian National Team [General topic]

With memories of the golden years (80's) of the albanian football still fresh on her mind, Albania is now attempting to recreate its strong football legacy. As young players start making their names abroad, the future is looking bright for Albanian football!

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Simboli i Diellit
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Come on guys , no need to play the if game. Both of points of view stand up to some point as we never had a totally diaspora team /neither totally superliga since back in the early 90s our team was based on diaspora players. We should consider diaspora even those who were raised up to their early 20s in Albania and made the quality jump playing in lower leagues abroad then going to better teams like Tare, Skela, Lala ect If they would’ve stayed in Albania i’m quite sure they would downgraded with time as our league level couldn’t compete with those abroad in tempo and technical , physical preparation.

We’ve noticed recently a high number of U19 players being sold abroad from albanian youth teams like Skenderbeu, Partizani, Tirana, Vllaznia. If the trend goes on eventually it will effect our league level but from the Nt point of view eventually 3-4 good players will come out.

About the Italian diaspora it’s a wishfull expectation as even Italians aren’t able to produce good enough players for themselves. Althrough Strakosha might be considered an Italian product at some extent there are almost always 3-4 albanians playing for Lazio U19 every year. In the next two three years we’ll have plenty of talented Albanians in Serie B and maybe even Serie A [most of them will fail , the stats in Italy say that only one player out of 5.000 becomes Serie A player. Albania already has 2 out of 15 thousand Albanian football players who are born here or emigrated to Italy. We’re missing another one as Djimsiti and Berisha don’t count ;) ]

This Vrioni kid seems promissing. Just found out that his two grandfathers were between those who signed our indipendence act along with Ismail Qemali and Isa Boletini ... The guy has a high football IQ unlike many of those “talents” our journals sells us.

By the way my nephiew has become a stable in our U15 . He’s getting a lot of play time at Venezia and at the moment the family is considering only Lazio and Milan hopefully waiting for the last one.
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Aurora Bulkualis
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artan wrote: Sun Sep 16, 2018 1:00 am How weren't they crucial goals lol? Lenjani's superb goal out of nowhere against Denmark got us a point.
Of course every goal matters, but it's not a super clutch goal against a top team/make or break game. I'm not arguing that without diaspora we'd be good. We'd be fucking trash without it.

But fact of the matter is, diaspora has 95% of the time just supplied us with defensive minded players. Switzerland/Germany/Belgium are not going to let an offensive minded player go easy like that. Superliga has always supplied the difference makers. We're still over-relying on Superliga players to score (for better or for worse).
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artan
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Aurora Bulkualis wrote: Sun Sep 16, 2018 2:13 am
artan wrote: Sun Sep 16, 2018 1:00 am How weren't they crucial goals lol? Lenjani's superb goal out of nowhere against Denmark got us a point.
Of course every goal matters, but it's not a super clutch goal against a top team/make or break game. I'm not arguing that without diaspora we'd be good. We'd be fucking trash without it.

But fact of the matter is, diaspora has 95% of the time just supplied us with defensive minded players. Switzerland/Germany/Belgium are not going to let an offensive minded player go easy like that. Superliga has always supplied the difference makers. We're still over-relying on Superliga players to score (for better or for worse).
"Difference Makers"? This is comical. In what planet is Bekim Balaj a difference maker? He scored on miracle volley and all of a sudden he's a difference maker. Sadiku has been the best domestic player since and has been instrumental with the NT but he barely played during the qualification campaign. Many of us didn't even want him on the final roster for the tournament. That teams whole identity was because they were sound defensively, disciplined and had pitbulls in the midfield. No domestic players had discipline and defensive capabilities like that. And I'm pretty sure we could have replaced those "difference makers" with random diaspora players like Nuhiu (uncapped at the time), Besart Berisha, etc, and still would have been fine.

I mean no disrespect to the domestic players because it's not their fault. The FSHF and superliga have failed them as they don't care about youth development. But the fact is the domestic talent is shit. When the best products to come out of the country in the past 5 years are bench warmers for mediocre Russian Clubs and spot starters in Croatia you know the league is shit. We are probably the worst at youth development in the whole region. Even Macedonia and Kosova have been developing more players than us. Something needs to be done and we can't turn a blind eye about it and fool ourselves into thinking these players are any good.
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Aurora Bulkualis
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artan wrote: Sun Sep 16, 2018 3:10 am "Difference Makers"? This is comical. In what planet is Bekim Balaj a difference maker? He scored on miracle volley and all of a sudden he's a difference maker. Sadiku has been the best domestic player since and has been instrumental with the NT but he barely played during the qualification campaign. Many of us didn't even want him on the final roster for the tournament. That teams whole identity was because they were sound defensively, disciplined and had pitbulls in the midfield. No domestic players had discipline and defensive capabilities like that. And I'm pretty sure we could have replaced those "difference makers" with random diaspora players like Nuhiu (uncapped at the time), Besart Berisha, etc, and still would have been fine.

I mean no disrespect to the domestic players because it's not their fault. The FSHF and superliga have failed them as they don't care about youth development. But the fact is the domestic talent is shit. When the best products to come out of the country in the past 5 years are bench warmers for mediocre Russian Clubs and spot starters in Croatia you know the league is shit. We are probably the worst at youth development in the whole region. Even Macedonia and Kosova have been developing more players than us. Something needs to be done and we can't turn a blind eye about it and fool ourselves into thinking these players are any good.
Dude why are you so butthurt when I point out facts? Balaj practically scored the hardest goal in Albanian football history. Beating Portugal away from home, is the biggest 1 game accomplishment ever. Sadiku got us the first win ever in a major tournament. Even Salihi got us the first major away win against a good team. I don't remember Albania ever getting a major away win before that. That game opened the floodgates.

You're making it sound like I'm saying the Superliga players are world class or something. We all know without diaspora we wouldn't have done shit, but fact of the matter is the diaspora has given us jack shit when it comes to offence. That was all Superliga.
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Simboli i Diellit wrote: Sun Sep 16, 2018 1:54 amBy the way my nephiew has become a stable in our U15 . He’s getting a lot of play time at Venezia and at the moment the family is considering only Lazio and Milan hopefully waiting for the last one.
Tell em to pick Lazio. :gezuar:
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plisi
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Aurora Bulkualis wrote: Fri Sep 14, 2018 5:43 am To be fair all the big moments have come from Superliga players. That big win vs. Norway that popped our away games cherry, was a Bulku assist/Salihi goal. Against Portugal, it was a Roshi assist/Balaj goal. At EUROs, it was Lila assist/Sadiku assist. Against Armenia, it was Memushaj/Sadiku who scored. I'd say Superliga has been the strongest it's been in at least a decade (granted that's still shit in the grand scheme of things). Those 10 teams are almost even with each other.
This makes no fvking sense, man!

Although, Hamdi Salihu is probably the best Albania has produced in the last 20 years!
Aurora Bulkualis wrote: Fri Sep 14, 2018 5:43 am The main problem is not the level of the league, but the lack of talents. Grassroots is trash, because only kids whose parents have money can play. My cousins have to pay like 200 bucks a month to play at youth levels, which is like someone's monthly wage. When you look at guys like Tare/Bogdani/Lala/Skela they were fucking broke as kids. Those opportunities aren't afforded to you anymore.
There's no way possible to explain the lack of good talent when albania loves football so much, you probably had more tv shows covering the wc18 than the other balkans countries combined. Some things that might help though, stop copying everything from Italy and thinking that's the only way football should be played and importing so much ex-yugo deadweight. Someone like freaking Pejic has probably become rich playing in Albania :rrokullisem: and the japanese player is probably still in superliga.

Kosovo right now could only dream of having an infrastructure as good as that in Albania and is still managing to export semi-decent players. Could you even imagine any albo club having a 17-years old captain(Rashica) and play in superliga, let alone win it?!
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plisi
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Dallku wrote: Fri Sep 14, 2018 7:13 pm The diaspora should only be seen as a bonus not a necessity. That's why I couldn't care less if a diaspora player refuses. I used to care more a decade ago but now I couldn't care less. I actually expect them to refuse nowadays.

The biggest disappointment when it comes to talents is Cekici. I had hope in him but he seems to be taking steps backwards than forward. He was hot or cold for the u-21 but I still think he was better than Rashica when they played together. He clearly had (has?) the talent. Maybe too many injuries. Not sure.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nA3jAa5lpX0

Enjoy it man :mecigare:
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Plako
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plisi wrote: Mon Sep 17, 2018 1:46 am https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nA3jAa5lpX0

Enjoy it man :mecigare:
Every time Rashica scores I think of LedZep :)
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Rashica is already an established flop. He barely gets playing minutes, he was voted as one of the worst players this week when he came on as a sub, Werder fans think he blows. He's even losing his place in Kosovo NT lol.

A fluke goal here and there doesn't change anything. Albanian fans always value players based on specific moments(goals) but for coaches and people who understand the game, they value decision making and other things more. Things that bring consistency not flukes. That's why we have been stuck with Balaj for 4 more years than we should have.. just because he scored that fluke goal in Portugal.
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Aurora Bulkualis
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I'd say the main problem with Albania is not the quality of Superliga, but the lack of talents. Skenderbeu knocked out Dinamo Zagreb, which out of Russia/Ukraine is the strongest team in Eastern Europe. Yet, Latifi can't even start in some bootleg Hungarian team at the bottom of the table.

The grassroots are completely fucked, that's why you see Skenderbeu going for Kosovar kids more than anything. Like LedZep said, if you can't dominate Albania, you shouldn't leave the country. The problem is the so called "talents" aren't really talents.
"Cheap things you can buy in bulk, but Bulku is priceless" Ervin Xhevahir Bulku
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