It came two days before the new peak of Albanian football, their first-ever match in the finals of a major tournament.
The announcement from FIFA about the participation of Kosovo national team in the 2018 World Cup qualifiers, put Albanian football under some uncertainty for the future.
In September, when Kosovo play their first match against Finland, it will be the last call for the Albanian team that we’ve met in recent years and that qualified for Euro 2016. At the same time, Albania will play a Balkan derby against the FYR of Macedonia The big question for Albania will be which players will play in that match, and who will leave and play for their homeland of Kosovo.
Immigrants with Loyalty
In 2011, when Gianni de Biassi was appointed as the manager of Albania, the team had just had another bad qualifying campaign. Albania usually finished their campaigns at the bottom of their group, with only teams like Malta or Luxembourg saving them from being one of the worst sides in Europe. However, De Biassi had an idea of how to improve the national team. His inspiration was the national team’s leader, Lorik Cana.
Cana is the all-time appearance record holder for Albania with 92 games and has played for top teams like Paris Saint Germain, Olympique Marseille and Galatasaray. Cana is of Albanian descent, but he wasn’t born in Albania. He was born in Prishtina, the capital city of Kosovo, then he moved with his family to Switzerland as a youngster. The horrible war in the late 90s made many Kosovars leave their homes and find shelter all over Europe.
De Biassi looked for those players, who grew in Europe but felt some Albanian football identity. In the Euro 2016 squad, Cana was one of twelve players who were not born in Albania. Some of them have even played for the national youth teams in their new countries, like Frederic Veseli, Amir Abrashi and Shkëlzen Gashi for Switzerland or Mërgim Mavraj for Germany. The players who didn’t make it in the senior teams are now Albania’s main players. Even though De Biassi missed out on a great talent in the Belgian-born Adnan Januzaj, Albania kept moving forward.
Albano-Kosovar?
A week before the start of the Euros, Kosovo made its own history. In a small stadium in Frankfurt, Kosovo played their first full FIFA official match against the Faroe Islands. Kosovo won 2:0 and their team looked very much the same as the immigrant team of Albania. The scorers were Albert Bunjaku, who even played for the Switzerland senior team at the 2010 World Cup, and Elbasan Rashani, who played for Norway at every youth level.
Kosovo still failed to attract a top name to their squad. Their key player is the goalkeeper, Samir Ujkani, who was the first choice goalkeeper for Albania until he was replaced by another Kosovar player, Etrit Berisha. The affiliation of Kosovo to FIFA and their World Cup qualifiers campaign may give some opportunities for Albanian players to play in the newly-created team. There are also other teams that could lose players, like Xherdan Shaqiri and Granit Xhaka of Switzerland and Përparim Hetemaj of Finland, who will face Kosovo in their first match. Yet no team will have lost as many players as Albania.
National Football
This is not a new problem in the world of football. Algeria has the same problem, as they are currently led by a French-born golden generation. The local players are far behind the players from France, so local football actually makes no progress. The Algerian FA has made a bizarre decision because of this: no foreign players can play in the Algerian domestic league. The lack of any development programmes is damaging to football in Algeria and Albania. It does not matter how many foreigners play if you have no plans for the local players' future. It turns performances like Skënderbeu Korçë’s appearance in the UEFA Europa League group stage into a random event, which couldn’t ever be repeated.
After the Euros, each of the Kosovar players will have the time to think.
They will have to decide whether to continue with their current teams or go and represent their homeland and that of their parents. Those who will keep playing for Albania will have to deal with a weaker squad than in the past, a squad that could see Albania return to the bottom of European football.
In the last days of the Albanian dream, a new Kosovar team with players from all over Europe will be made and they will have their own dream – to reach higher levels than Albania could ever dream of.