Euro 2016 : Albania 2:1 Armenia (full match replay)

[Albin93]

Yes, dont get me wrong !

I do agree that Abrashi is a player working his ass off, behind closed curtains or as you may call it.

Abrashi completes the balance between him and Kukeli as the 2 defensive mid anchors, because
1) he is faster, Kukeli is kinda slow
2) more agressive in his style
3) Xhaka fullfills this role perfectly

So what do Albania need in this 3 man midfield that we play ?

We need a player that gets ball feeded to him by theese two and creates a balance/ connection between the midfield ---> attackers/off players

This spot is Kace-reserved indeed due to his high passing rate and quality passing short and long

Imagine a low defensive line with kukeli winning the ball, pass it over to Kace whom then easily can find gashi or lenjani on the flanks on the counter...

Kace is definately our best player at this "killer" ball pass...

Memushaj did not provide this kind of balance to the team this last game v Armenia, and we lacked on this killer pass in depth forward, due to his lack of intelligance/quality

Which instead lead to many early crosses from the flanks, and not much through the centre ( also Armenia played very very deep, and central with their defense )

Interesting though, too follow the outcome of this team, weve never had this much qaulity players ( ever ) I think !

[Aurora Bulkualis]

Interesting though, too follow the outcome of this team, weve never had this much qaulity players ( ever ) I think !

For 1998 campaign, Germany conceded 9 goals the entire qualifying campaign, and 5 of them were scored by Albania. We had quality back then, just 0 discipline, professionalism, hunger. We'd show up against Greece, Russia, Germany and fade away from the rest. We may have gotten better defensive players, but there is no way our offensive players are better today.

[ZenMaster]

Both players who scored had beards. I think we should start an 11 full bearded players lineup vs. Serbia.

I don't think I've seen a performance by one of our forwards like Gashi in a long time. Granted it was only one half but what a performance, he was everywhere.


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Exactly, i saw the game twice and if you follow him of field how he moves, how he always loses his marker than you understand that it is not surprise that he scores so much. I don't think we ever had a player with such a killer instinct.

[Berti]

Gashi was brilliant as expected. But i fear that might reinforce DB idea of him as an impact player. Which is wierd as none of our players play good with their clubs apart from him. So the club form just doesn't matter with Albania. Hell, even Berisha who we hail as a god can't get a game for Lazio and when he does, he is nothing special. Which brings us to the current crop who play everytime. Every manager must have a formation that suits the opposition play. You can't have the same game plan with the same players against Portugal away and Armenia at home. We got done against Denmark that way and got away with it against Armenia. I am willing (due to their size) to give DB one of my balls and that should solve the problem.

[Berti]

And by the way. What's this DB having an albanian wife? I never knew that. All media saying that. If that's true, it would explain a lot. Guy is Obviously whipped! Any chance this sister is related to Bulku? Would explain a lot

[Simboli i Diellit]

De Biasi said: "I'm married to an Albanian girl " . The natonal team.

[Minotti]

Gashi was brilliant as expected. But i fear that might reinforce DB idea of him as an impact player. Which is wierd as none of our players play good with their clubs apart from him. So the club form just doesn't matter with Albania. Hell, even Berisha who we hail as a god can't get a game for Lazio and when he does, he is nothing special. Which brings us to the current crop who play everytime. Every manager must have a formation that suits the opposition play. You can't have the same game plan with the same players against Portugal away and Armenia at home. We got done against Denmark that way and got away with it against Armenia. I am willing (due to their size) to give DB one of my balls and that should solve the problem.

Well said Berti and agree with every Word of it. This is why Im very sceptical towards DB at times because we can only play certain type of football and that suits us in those game. But we must have a B plan when we're on the reverse seats, so to speak. More often than not, we're Clueless. This time we had an incredible luck in Agolli playing the game of his Life. Only Beckham could cross better and more precise than what agolli did in this game. We also had "luck" that DB subbed in lenjani and Gashi especially.

We MUST work on a B plan. Sooner than later teams will know how to defeat us. IMO its very simple though, just give us the ball...

[artan]

Gashi was brilliant as expected. But i fear that might reinforce DB idea of him as an impact player. Which is wierd as none of our players play good with their clubs apart from him. So the club form just doesn't matter with Albania. Hell, even Berisha who we hail as a god can't get a game for Lazio and when he does, he is nothing special. Which brings us to the current crop who play everytime. Every manager must have a formation that suits the opposition play. You can't have the same game plan with the same players against Portugal away and Armenia at home. We got done against Denmark that way and got away with it against Armenia. I am willing (due to their size) to give DB one of my balls and that should solve the problem.

Well said Berti and agree with every Word of it. This is why Im very sceptical towards DB at times because we can only play certain type of football and that suits us in those game. But we must have a B plan when we're on the reverse seats, so to speak. More often than not, we're Clueless. This time we had an incredible luck in Agolli playing the game of his Life. Only Beckham could cross better and more precise than what agolli did in this game. We also had "luck" that DB subbed in lenjani and Gashi especially.

We MUST work on a B plan. Sooner than later teams will know how to defeat us. IMO its very simple though, just give us the ball...

Our Plan A is to bunker and counter attack and this is normally effective for us as we play teams that are more technical to us and expect to control the possession like Portugal, Denmark, Serbia, France, Italy, etc. However, it doesn't work against teams that are on the same level as us or are defensive like Armenia and in the past Hungary and Romania. I mean Armenia was bunkering against us in which was amazing as I don't think any team has bunkered against us and we just didn't know how to play because we had 4 damn holding midfielders in the lineup. Di Biasi said that he planned on playing Gashi in place for Xhaka but changed his mind last minute because he thought Armenia switched their tactics but I'm calling BS on that attempt from DB to save face.

As for Agolli he always had a great left foot. Sunday he had a bit more room as Armenia was focused on clogging the middle. Armenia didn't bother testing Agolli and I thought Agolli was our most comfortable defender or least nerve racking. It's funny because I read some Armenians on the internet comparing him to Roberto Carlos with his crosses.

Maybe DB takes this team to the next level. Still keep up the intensity and pressing that we normally have but have a bit more ability to break down defenses with Cika, Lenjani, Gashi and maybe Roshi in the lineup. Those guys are very willing defenders as well.

[Shpati]

Okay Lila can be very unpredictable and gives away too many silly fouls, but he's still a solid tackler/energy guy. Abrashi is obviously an important player for us not only in defence, tracking back, but also in the energy he displays, although against Armenia I think it should have been Kace or Basha in his place. I view him as more of a guy who comes off the bench to provide energy and defensive intensity, but he lacks technical skills when we go forward.

Unless you are very good, you are going to have 2 players on your team who look like they don't do much. Kukeli, Abrashi and our right mid are those guys for us tbh. If we put in Kace or Basha in for one of them, it might take away from others.

[Dallku]

I can understand the logic behind Kukeli(he's a quick passer and tactical) but Abrashi and Memushaj are completely useless. I don't buy into their "defense" either. Both have short legs and can't tackle. They just run like headless chickens.