Sport in Albania
Albania is a beautiful country with a wide range of sports history. Its traditional sports have a lot to do with survival like hunting and fishing but by far their most popular sport is football.
Albanians love football so much that it has a lot of professional teams and virtually all towns and cities have a form of amateur league. This then lead to a very high number of very good football players from Albania or have an Albanian heritage. However, there are a lot of Albanian players being scooped up by other countries like Switzerland, Finland, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Kosovo and Germany. This could explain the talent-drain in the Albanian national football team.
The Albanian national soccer team have an unusually high number of players who, though ethnically Albanian, are from the Kosovo area. But they do have some pretty impressive players like Altin Lala, the best goal keeper in Albanian football history. On the other end of the spectrum, Erjon Bogdani is the highest goal scorer in the rich history of Albanian football. What is interesting though is as far as the world stage is concerned, Albania has not faired too well being one of the lower ranked teams in both FIFA and UEFA World Cups.
Below are details of sports, sporting events and sports people related to Albania.
Popular sports of Albania
- Football (Soccer), basketball, volleyball, handball, boxing, weightlifting, tennis, swimming, judo, karate, athletics, table tennis
Albania Sporting Success
- Winner of the Balkan Cup in 1946 (football)
- Winner Malta Rothmans International Football Tournament 2000
Great athletes from Albania
- Lorik Cana (football)
- Altin Lala (football)
- Erjon Bogdani (football)
- Luan Krasniqi (boxing)
- Erjon Tola (alpine skiing)
- Luiza Gega (track and field)
- Igli Tare (football)
- Tie (Tahir) Domi - Canadain Born hockey player born to Albanian parents.
Albania Sports trivia
- Albania's first-ever appearance at a major men's football tournament was UEFA Euro 2016.
- Albania competes at the Mediterranean Games
Albania at major events
- Albania at the Summer Olympics
- Albania at the Winter Olympics
- Albania at the FIFA World Cup
- Albania at the UEFA Euros
Past sporting events events hosted in Albania
Upcoming sporting events in Albania
Annual sporting events held in Albania
- Albanian Superliga (football)
- Albanian Basketball Superliga (basketball)
Sporting Facilities in Albania
- Loro Boriçi Stadium in Shkodër
- Flamurtari Stadium in Vlorë
- Elbasan Arena in Elbasan
Is there something missing? If you know of something that should be listed here, please let us know.
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