Albania national football team

The Albania national football team is the national association football team of Albania and it has represented the Albanian nation since 1932.

Although it never played any matches, the Albanian national football team existed before FSHF was created. This is witnessed by the registration of the team in the Balkan Cup tournament of 1929-1931, which started in 1929 (although Albania eventually retired from the competition, before the competition started). FSHF was founded on June 6, 1930, and Albania had to wait 16 years to play its first international match, debuting against Yugoslavia in 1946. In 1932, Albania joined FIFA (during the congress June 12 — June 16) and in 1954, it was one of the founding members of UEFA.

Recent developments

In December 2007, Football Association of Albania's president, Armand Duka, announced Arie Haan would replace Croatian-Austrian Otto Barić as Albania's head coach. Haan signed a two-year contract on January 4, 2008.

On March 14, 2008, Albania was suspended from international football (FIFA and UEFA), due to heavy political interference in the Football Association. The suspension lasted 46 days.

Haan was replaced by Croatian coach Josip Kuže in May 2009. Kuže parted ways with Albania almost three years later, in December 2011, when coach Gianni de Biasi replaced him.

The Albania national team has recently had an unprecedented high number of players, who although are Albanian by ethnicity, were not born in Albania, but either in Kosovo, or outside of Kosovo, while hailing from Albanian Kosovar parents. As of August 13, 2013, 14 Albanians of Kosovo origin were either part of the start-up team, or have received recent call-ups.

Significant presence at the 2014 FIFA World Cup

Before the World Cup in 2014 a significant presence of Albanians had been noted in several national teams. In March 5, 2014 54 Albanians were called up by 7 different national teams Albania (19), Kosovo (22), Switzerland(5), Macedonia (4), Finland (2), Germany (1), and Montenegro (1).

The Catalan newspaper El Mundo Deportivo reported a significant presence of Albanians in the World Cup, thanks to an article published by it. The article emphasized how Albania is not in the World Cup 2014, as a result of the "originating stars who are springing up in major competitions on the globe", especially emphasizing Xherdan Shaqiri. According to the newspaper if Gianni De Biasi had been able to use Swiss representative footballers and Adnan Januzaj of Belgium, at the 1/8 finals against Argentina would not be Switzerland, but the Red & Blacks of Albania. According to the article, a country with three million inhabitants, which had never previously participated in a major tournament, could have been present in the Brazilian World Cup if the stars of Albanian origin had chosen to wear the jersey of their own country. The article noted that Xherdan Shaqiri, currently the star of the Swiss youth was too ambitious to play for the Albania in the past, and holds two passports, the Swiss and Albanian. Born in Gjilan, Kosovo, in the end he decided to wear the shirt of Switzerland, the country where he trained as a footballer. The second name that could have done the job for De Biasi, according to Catalan daily, was Adnan Januzaj of Belgium, which the label as a great talent. For the latter, "El Mundo Deportivo" writes that he was born in Brussels but emphasizes the origins of his father, who is an Albanian from Kosovo. The article also mentions how the two brothers Xhaka are split: The younger one, Granit, plays for Switzerland and the elder one, Taulant, for Albania, whereas the Macedonian Albanians such asBlerim Dzemaili, Admir Mehmedi and Valon Behrami, according to "El Mundo Deportivo" would make the team of Albania one of the most talented in Europe.

In September 2014, it was reported that 80 Albanians played with foreign (thus excluding Albania, Kosovo and Macedonia) senior and youth national teams, out of which 46 with Switzerland only.