Dallku wrote: ↑Sat Oct 26, 2019 10:58 pm
Bogdani was a very good target man. Not a great goal scorer but excellent at holding the ball, smart, bringing players into play, etc... There is a reason he had a long career in a tough, defensive Serie A where every game ended 1-0 or 0-0.
Back then the biggest problem for Albania was defense and MENTALITY(especially). We had 0 problems scoring goals and creating chances. Lala, Skela, etc were excellent players as well but we never gave them credit because of results.
Albanians asking for Bogdani to get benched is irrelevant. Albanians are asking for Hysaj to get benched right now... If we had Messi they would want him to get benched too. That's who Albanians are and how much they understand this game.. if we're honest.
No one is asking for Hysaj to be benched.. No one but maybe you? There was a time were Bogdani was put in the Lila, Dalku, Villa, category of players that should be benched. You can probably check out the old xtratime forums. I think at the time people were wanting other guys ahead of him. In hindsight those other guys weren't better than Bogdani because they were amateurs but to say Bogdani was a good player is a stretch. He was big, strong, decent help up play, decent at headers and not really much, very limited himself.
As for the goal scoring we are actually scoring more now than we did back then and that's even when you consider the groups were larger back them. Example:
2002 WCQ - 5 goals scored
2004 ECQ - 11 goals scored ( 8 matches)
2006 WCQ - 11 goals scored (12 matches)
2008 ECQ - 12 goals scored (12 matches)
2010 WCQ - 6 goals scored ( 10 matches)
2012 ECQ - 7 goals scored (10 matches)
2014 WCQ - 9 goals scored (10 matches)
2016 ECQ - 10 goals scored ( 8 matches)
2018 WCQ - 10 goals scores (10 matches)
2020 ECQ - 14 goals scored (8 matches)
So to say we were scoring at will back then is kinda hilarious. We were constantly one of the worst teams back then and offensively we weren't any good either even with the Serie A "bombers" in Tare and Bogdani. You are right that the defense and mentality changed and that's because the team doesn't have any Albanian based players in the lineup anymore. We went from amateurs to professionals playing in better leagues who can actually implement a scheme and somewhat defend. God bless the diaspora players or else we'll be like Moldova right now.