Kosovo national football team

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Kosovo

Nickname

Association

FFK

Head coach

Edmond Rugova

Most caps

Top scorer

FIFA code

Elo ranking

Unranked





First kit





Second kit

First international

Albania 3 - 1 Kosovo

(14 February 1993)

Biggest win

Kosovo 7 - 1 Monaco

(France; April 22, 2006)

Biggest defeat

Albania 3 - 1 Kosovo

(14 February 1993)

The Kosovo national football team represents Kosovo in international men's football. Controlled by the Football Federation of Kosovo, the governing body for football in Kosovo, they are unranked in the FIFA World Rankings as the Football Federation of Kosovo is not yet a member of FIFA.

The Kosovo national football team was formed following the break-up of the former Yugoslavia, and has played a number of friendly games. Most of these friendly games have been with football clubs, however, a few games have been with national teams of other countries. The team is currently coached by Edmond Rugova, who took charge in the summer of 2006.

The Kosovo team wears red and black shirt colors, similar to the Albanian national football team shirts, but with different designs. Pending the final status of Kosovo at the end of 2006, the national flag, uniforms, and colors are yet to be decided.

Players like Lorik Cana, Armend Dallku, Debatik Curri, Besnik Hasi, Mehmet Dragusha, Ilir Nallbani, and Haxhi Zeka — by far the best footballer playing in Kosovo and top scorer in the last five years in the Kosovar Superliga — would be eligible for the Kosovo team.

[edit] Match Record

Kosovo has played five international matches; the latest, led by former Kosovo national team coach, Muharem Sahiti, was a win of 7-1 against host team Monaco . Sahiti said of the win, "I am very pleased with the team’s performance even though we had predicted a stronger opponent. However, I want to emphasize that our players have been fantastic. The fact that we do not play many international matches may have inspired the players to give it their all this time" ^{[cite this quote]}. Prior to this game, Sahiti had been unsuccessful in Kosovo football after coaching a few superleague teams; two of the teams under his coaching tenure were relegated to a lower Kosovo league and made him undesirable to most of the public, media, and players.

Previously, Kosovo played two games against Albania and lost both of them, 1-0 at home, and 3-1 away. They also played Turkey twice, where they won one game and lost one; Kosovo won 3-0 and lost 2-1 in same stadium, but on different dates. The games, however, were played with a team of 34-35 year-old seniors. Turkey and Albania played with their second teams.