By Ervin Lisaku
TIRANA, Oct. 7 – Albania beat modest Liechtenstein 2-0 on Thursday night to take the lead in Group G of the World Cup qualifiers after group favorites Italy and Spain drew 1-1.
Jahmir Hyka scored the opener with a header but world football’s governing body FIFA classified it as an own goal by the Liechtenstein goalkeeper. Bekim Balaj scored his second goal in the World Cup qualifiers after a much-needed late winner against Macedonia in the opening campaign.
Albania dominated the match and could have even scored more but lacked the necessary creativity in the midfield and had its key striker Armando Sadiku missing on injury. Group favorites Spain thrashed Lichtenstein 8-0 in their opening qualifier.
Albania’s focus is now on Spain who were held to a 1-1 draw away to Italy.
Albania will host Spain on Sunday, Oct. 9 at the newly reconstructed Shkodra stadium in what is expected to be a key test for Albania’s chances to make another surprise qualification after their debut at the Euro 2016.
Albania’s Italian coach Gianni De Biasi said he was happy with the team’s performance and provisionally leading Group G.
“I am happy with what the players performed on the pitch. It doesn’t often happen for Albania to lead the qualifiers, but in Italy have a saying that goes ‘count the dead at the end of the battle’,” said De Biasi.
“Italy and Spain are the group favorites for the first two places and playing them will not be in our favour. Leading the group is a great pleasure but we have two tough rivals,” he added.
Speaking after the match with Italy, Spain’s coach Julen Lopetegui said he expects Albania to be a tougher test than Italy.
“We were on top of them [Italy] for most of the game. But we must take lessons from both the good and the bad moments. And now we move on to an even harder test on Sunday. I insist that Albania will be even more difficult than this,” he said.
Spain have lost some of their shine after claiming the 2010 World Cup and the 2012 European championship but are still group favourites along with Italy, the four times World Champions, most recently in 2006.
Albania leads Group G of the Russia 2018 World Cup qualifiers with 6 points, followed Spain and Italy with 4 points each.
Group rivals Israel also got their first three points on Thursday when they beat Macedonia 2-1 to rank fourth in Group G.
The Red & Blacks will play at home to Israel on November 12 and travel to Italy on March 14, 2017 in the first round of group matches.
Kosovo, who are making they debut at the World Cup qualifiers after joining UEFA and FIFA were thrashed 6-0 by Croatia on Thursday night in a match played in Shkodra, northern Albania, for the Group I qualifiers.
Kosovo, which still doesn’t have a stadium that meets standards for international matches and will play its home qualifiers in Albania, got a historic draw away to Finland in their opening qualifier last September.
Differently from the Euro qualifiers where the top two group teams qualified directly and the third-placed teams were given a play-off chance, the road to Russia World Cup for European national sides is much tougher with only the nine group winners directly qualifying and the 8 best group runners-up contesting in a play-off round.
Last June, Albania ended their historic debut in a major football tournament in a dramatic disqualification filled with suspense after the national side was unlucky to make it to the knockout stage of the Euro 2016 as one of the four best third-placed teams. Albania, who collected three points in their group stage fixtures following a victory with Romania and losses against hosts France and Switzerland, were punished by their -2 goal difference.
