Marked for Aleksandro Skënderaj
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad27 Nov 2028
Renato Beqaj decides it from twelve yards
2 kept out in the shoot-out, and a stadium that will still be describing them in twenty years. A goalkeeper only needs one of these to be remembered forever.
Match22 Nov 2028
A 2‑2 win over Lushnja, and the draw for the next round can be watched with some interest for once.
Match27 Nov 2028
Every point is an argument now for Besa Kavajë
Position 10 and 10 points, and the table gets read bottom-up in this part of town. The calendar has stopped being a schedule and started being a countdown.
Market27 Nov 2028
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Besa Kavajë, and it is not being withdrawn.
Player ratings27 Nov 2028
Aleksandro Skënderaj, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 7.78
A mark of 7.78 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Match25 Nov 2028
No end in sight to Besa Kavajë's wait for a win
5 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Besa Kavajë has to find a result from somewhere.
Player ratings27 Nov 2028
Successful dribbles: 23. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
Squad27 Nov 2028
Rimal Haxhiu and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Boardroom27 Nov 2028
The accounts are being read more closely than the results. Wages before ambition is the order of business now, and the manager has been told so.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Player ratings23 Oct 2028
A brace, and Renaldo Torraj takes the afternoon — 8.02
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Renaldo Torraj provided it, and the 8.02 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Squad23 Oct 2028
Words at Besa Kavajë training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Renaldo Torraj is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Match21 Oct 2028
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Renaldo Torraj. 2‑1 against Partizani Tirana, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
The dugout23 Oct 2028
Johan Fataki gets it from the manager
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Squad23 Oct 2028
Ralph van Hunnik and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
The dugout23 Oct 2028
The manager’s verdict
“I am not going to get carried away and I will not let them either. It was a good day. There will be harder ones.” Albion Shala kept it short after the 2‑1 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
The dugout23 Oct 2028
Din Sula asks for a word with the manager
“I would rather say it to his face than read about it.” The meeting was requested by the player, which tells you most of what you need to know.
Squad23 Oct 2028
The division's best last weekend was a Besa Kavajë man
It is a small honour and it is not nothing: somebody watched every match in the division and decided that Renaldo Torraj was the best thing in any of them.
Looking ahead23 Oct 2028
Flamurtari next, and one man in the Besa Kavajë dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market11 Sep 2028
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Besa Kavajë, and it is not being withdrawn.
Market11 Sep 2028
Only the photograph left for Ledjon Koci
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Ledjon Koci will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Besa Kavajë the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad11 Sep 2028
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Besa Kavajë this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad11 Sep 2028
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Johan Fataki commits to Besa Kavajë for another 4 years.
Squad11 Sep 2028
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Renaldo Torraj was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Transfer targets11 Sep 2028
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Market11 Sep 2028
He is 20, and the scouting reports agree on the only line that matters: the ceiling. Signings like this are lottery tickets written by professionals.
Market11 Sep 2028
He is 20, and nobody at Besa Kavajë signed him for this season. Deals like this are judged in four years, by people who may not still be in the building.
Squad11 Sep 2028
Besa Kavajë are still strangers to each other
5 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.