TIRANA, Sept. 29, 2022 – Vllaznia Shkodër women’s football team made history this week, becoming the first Albanian team ever to reach the group stage of the UEFA Women’s Champions League.
It’s the largest success in Albanian football at club level since the KF Tirana men’s team in the 1989-90 reached the last 16 in the UEFA European Cup in the 80s.
Vllaznia have won Albania’s Women’s National Championship nine consecutive times.
The team is a mix of Albania and Kosovo players and also fields several international players hailing from the United States and Latin America.
It was one of three Americans on the team, Sarah Patterson, that scored the first goal to help Vllaznia beat Ukraine’s Vorskla-Kharkiv, 2-1, to advance to the group stage of the UEFA Women’s Champions League. The other goal was scored by Albania’s Gresa Berisha. (Watch the goals here)
Women’s football has been picking up in Albania, and there is likely to be more attention with the success of Vllaznia, which, ironically, in Albanian means “brotherhood.”
However, it took the club opening Shkodër’s Loro Borici stadium to the public free of charge to increase the attendance at the decisive qualification match.
The victory is also a major financial win for the team which is expected to get 580,000 million euros in total for its participation at the group stage.
