Albania Team Preview – Overview
The excitement is building with the Albanian public as their nation’s football team has qualified for a major tournament for the first time in their history. Just being at the tournament and representing the country is an achievement in itself but were they to pick up some results it would be massive for the entire nation.
Albania saw off Portugal in qualifying and beat France in a friendly a year ago so although their squad is devoid of many household names they don’t lack for ability judging by those results. Inexperience and the potential for stage fright on the big stage is a worry though.
Statistics
Best Performance – First qualification in 2016
Previous Appearances – 0
Qualified – Group I Runner-up
Qualifying Record
P-8 W-4 D-2 L-2 GF-10 GA-5 PTS-14
Fixtures
Albania vs Switzerland – Saturday 11th June, kickoff 14:00 at Stade Felix Bollaert-Delelis, Lens
France vs Albania – Wednesday 15th June, kickoff 20:00 at Stade Vélodrome, Marseille
Romania vs Albania – Sunday 19th June, kickoff 20:00 at Parc OL, Lyon
Squad
Manager: Gianni De Biasi
Goalkeepers: Etrit Berisha (Lazio), Alban Hoxha (Partizani), Orges Shehi (Skenderbeu).
Defenders: Elseid Hysaj (Napoli), Lorik Cana (Nantes), Arlind Ajeti (Frosinone), Mergim Mavraj (Koeln), Naser Aliji (Basel), Ansi Agolli (Karabag), Frederik Veseli (Lugano).
Midfielders: Ermir Lenjani (Nantes), Andi Lila (Giannina), Migjen Basha (Como), Ledian Memushaj (Pescara), Burim Kukeli (Zurich), Taulant Xhaka (Basel), Ergys Kace (Paok), Amir Abrashi (Freiburg), Odise Roshi (Rijeka).
Forwards: Bekim Balaj (Rijeka), Sokol Cikalleshi (Medipol Basaksehir), Armando Sadiku (Vaduz), Shkelzen Gashi (Colorado Rapids).
Betting
Albania are a side who are hard to bet on. We know they are going to set up defensively and probably try to ground out a couple of draws and the temptation is to back no goalscorer as their leading scorer but if someone like Romania got on top of them early they would have to come out and have a go and they could nick one somewhere along the line.
You would think the other three sides in this group would be too good for them but there isn’t a huge amount of value in them scoring zero points because they are defensively proficient, as you would expect with an Italian in charge, so they could snatch a point somewhere. There isn’t a bet we like on Albania.
Tips
No bet
