Albanians abroad

[Dallku]

Albania HAS succeeded at sports like weightlifting and wrestling..

The greatest weightlifter ever Pirro Dhima was an Albanian product.

Albania has had medalists at the European championships and even a world champion (Ymer Pampuri) at weightlifting.

In wrestling, Albania has also had medalists at the European championships.

Elis Guri won Gold at the World Championships for Bulgaria after having competed previously for Albania.

Weightlifting, wrestling, and now judo with Kosovo....

Those are the only sports Albanians can be "world class" at. It's also possible to be good at football, maybe not world class but good.

[Aurora Bulkualis]

There is a reason why there's a drastic difference between diaspora Albanians, and the ones at home. It's not "genetics", but training and conditioning. Now imagine if even all the people at home had the same training opportunities that Broja, Asllani, Shaqiri, Xhaka, etc. had.

A small country will never be a world class team. There are some very rare exceptions like Croatia, but that's not sustainable. With old Modric they couldn't even beat us. But if you have proper player development, conditioning, scouting, etc. you can do wonders.

[Princ]

Weightlifting, wrestling, and now judo with Kosovo....

Those are the only sports Albanians can be "world class" at.

No shame in that..

Wrestling and weightlifting are historic and legendary sports..

Way more legendary than Football, Basketball, and other modern team sports!

[artan]

The Bogdani/Skela/Lala generation aka the golden generation of Albanian football where they'd finish dead last in each qualifying group.

f*** those were the days!

They just didn't have professional defenders/goalkeepers and were leaking goals left and right. Different times back then.

But Bogdani, Skela, Lala would be guaranteed starters in today's team. They are actually what the team is lacking.

Ah yes Ervin Skela the golden boy of Albanian footballer spending most of his career switching between second league clubs and clubs ready to get relegated in Germany! The golden boy!

If Nedim Bajrami was from permet and played for that generation they would have built a 10 meter statue for them already. Guys like Bajrami and Asani contributed more to the national team in one qualifying cycle than 15 years of Golden Boy Skela. Skela wouldn’t even start in this team.

The only player worth a damn of that generation was Lala and you guys probably don’t even like him because he’s a gypsy. If Lala was from Gjirokaster you bet he would have an airport named after him by now!

And don’t get me started on the dragon slayer Igli Tare who could barely score 5 goals a season.