Albania national under-21 football team

European national under-21 football team
Name = Albania U21
Badge = Albania_FA.gif
FIFA Trigramme = ALB
Founded = 1930 Nickname = |Shpresat e Shqiperise
Association = Football Association of Albania
Confederation = UEFA (Europe)
Coach = Flagicon|Albania Artan Bushati
Captain =
Most caps =
Top scorer =
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First game =
Largest win =
Largest loss =
UEFAu21Champ apps = 1
UEFAu21Champ best = Quarter-finals, 1984
UEFAu21Champ first = 1984

The Albania national under-21 football team is the national under-21 football team of Albania and is controlled by the Football Association of Albania. The team competes in the European Under-21 Football Championship,which is held held every two years.

In terms of youth football, this team is the highest age group team in which the best young, professional footballers who have were born in Albania, or have Albanian parents or grandparents, can be selected to play in. The team's players have the hope that they can successfully play international football with some success and possibly be called up to play in the full senior Albania team.

The Current Team

Head coach: Artan Bushati

Goalkeepers

Defenders

Midfielders

trikers

1984 UEFA European Under-21 Football Championship

Albania Under-21's have only ever managed to qualify for any competition once in their history, and that came in the year of 1984 when they managed to qualify for the 1984 UEFA European Under-21 Football Championship. They were drawn in a very tough group which included the West Germany, Turkey and Austria. This historic event in Albanian football history is the only occasion where any Albanian national team has ever managed to qualify for a major European or even World championship. To this day the team that qualified for 1984 UEFA European Under-21 Football Championship are still regarded as the most successfull team in Albanian history. This is because they managed to qualify without losing a single game and managing two very good draws against one of the biggest and best footballing nations on the planet, Germany (West Germany).

Qualifying

"fbu|21|ALB qualify as group winners".flagicon|West Germany West Germany failed to qualify despite being undefetead.

Quater-finals

After the Albania national under-21 football team qualified for the atual tournament, they were drawn against one of the best teams on the planet, Italy. Albania were just proud to be in the competition and so when they had to go up against a team with a real shot of actually winning it things were always going to be tough for the small Balkan nation.Fact|date=October 2008 In Tirana, Albania showed a lot of spirit and determination, but in the end the class of Italy managed to just scrape a win against Albania.Fact|date=October 2008 By the second leg, the damage had already been done and Albania had no real chance of getting any further in the competition.Fact|date=October 2008 The match in Italy also ended 1-0 to Azzuri. Italy won 2-0 on aggregate and made it through to the semi-finals were they were knocked out by the runners-up Spain.
* Albania 0-1 Italy
* Italy 1-0 Albania"fbu|21|ITA win 2-0 on aggregate"

References

ee also

*Albania national football team