TIRANA, Jan. 23 – In less than a year after neighboring Kosovo was admitted as a full member by the world football’s governing body, Albania and Kosovo will face each other for the first time in an official tournament for the preliminary qualification round of the France 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup.
The Albania-Kosovo fixture will be a small derby of Albanian-roots, dominated by Kosovo players as Albania’s only five-year-old women’s national side features as many as 15 Kosovo players in the 22 players called up for this tournament.
The two teams have been drawn in Group 2 of the preliminary round along with Greece and Malta as part of the four mini-tournaments that will be played between April 6 to 11, 2017 with the four section winners and the best runner-up progressing to the qualifying stage, joining the 30-ranked entrants in the upcoming April 25 draw.
Albania’s 42-year-old coach Armir Grima, a former Albanian goalkeeper who also played in Kosovo for some time, says the Albania-Kosovo encounter is something special that will produce rare emotions.
“To tell the truth I didn’t expect to be drawn in the same group. I am surprised because it’s something uncommon but also special about two Albanian teams playing each other. But, of course, they’re our opponents and we want to beat them despite the brotherly encounter,” Grima has told reporters.
Speaking about Albania’s chances of progressing to the qualifying stage, Grima singles out Greece and Kosovo as the toughest opponents.
“Kosovo and Greece are both tough teams and it will be difficult for us. We need luck to hope for qualification and I am fully confident in the players,” he adds.
Asked about the possibility of Kosovo players leaving the Albanian national side now that they have their own national team making their historic debut nine years after the country declared its independence from Serbia, the Albanian coach says the young women are free to choose.
“We really have a lot of Kosovo players in the team, but they have chosen Albania with all their heart. I don’t want to prejudice any woman who has left because it’s their right to do so, but I can say that they do have obligations even towards Albania,” he adds.
Several Kosovo players from the U-19 have already left Albania in a massive exodus that has not affected the major national side.
Kosovo’s female coach Aferdita Fazlija says she wouldn’t have wanted Albania in the same group.
“After Kosovo was admitted as a FIFA and UEFA member, there has always existed the possibility of facing Albania. If there was a way I could intervene in the draw, then I wouldn’t have wanted to be drawn in the same group. In two different groups, the odds for success would be far bigger,” Fazlija has told Kosovo media.
The Kosovo coach says there will be no pressure on players already playing with Albania to pick Kosovo.
“The women already playing for Albania will have to make a decision for themselves, but they will not be denied the right to return. Morally, we have to find a solution to the players’ desire and will,” she says.
Suada Jashari, a Kosovo-born midfielder who has been playing with Albania since 2011 when the women’s national side was founded, says the fact she will be playing her native Kosovo is something special that should be seen as only an all-Albanian football match.
“I have been with the Albanian national side since 2011 and I am happy for this choice. I have to stress that women’s football in Kosovo is much earlier than in Albania and this is one more reason why there are more Kosovo Red and Black players with Albania,” says the 28-year-old midfielder.
Albanian women currently rank 72nd among 177 teams in the FIFA ranking compared to a best ever 59th in 2013 and have already participated in two Euro and World Cup qualifiers in a major performance considering only a decade of women’s football history in the country.
In the men’s national side, several players of Kosovo roots who were not called up for the major Albania debut in the Euro 2016, including 20-year-old talent Milot Rashica who plays as an attacking midfielder for Dutch Eredivisie side Vitesse, have left Albania to play for Kosovo.
In the Euro debut, Albania’s Taulant Xhaka and Switzerland’s Granit Xhaka became the first two brothers to face each other in different national sides at a European championship in a group stage fixture which 10-men Albania narrowly lost 1-0.
