When the Republic of Ireland line out in Pristina on Thursday, they will face a Kosovo team that almost qualified for the World Cup.
But for a narrow play-off final defeat to Turkey in March, the Balkan country would have been in North America this summer.
During the group campaign, the real landmark results came against Sweden.
A 2-0 win in Pristina this time last year was impressive enough. But to follow it up with a 1-0 victory in Gothenburg a month later was monumental, even if Sweden were at their lowest ebb at the time.
It was particularly surreal viewing for Albert Bunjaki and for more than one reason.
The current head of academy of Swedish club IF Karlstad Fotboll, Bunjaki had lived in the Scandinavian country since he fled Kosovo – then a part of Yugoslavia – in 1991.
But more poignant was the fact that the 55-year-old knows exactly what it had taken for Kosovo to be competing on an equal footing with the likes of Sweden.
It’s only ten years ago in May 2016 that they were formally admitted into FIFA and UEFA by a slim margin.
By that time, Bunjaki had been manager of the Kosovo men’s team for seven years. But it was a span in which they were mostly a national team in name only as the country pushed for recognition on a sporting and geo-political level.
On the latter front, the fact that Ireland was one of a select few countries to recognise Kosovo’s declaration of indepedence in 2008 means Boys in Green fans will receive an appreciative welcome in Pristina this week.
“I think the Irish people will feel free in Kosovo because we are thankful for everything Republic of Ireland did for Kosovo, and we will always remember that,” Bunjaku says during a conversation on the RTÉ Soccer Podcast which delved deep into what it took to build a Kosovan national team, essentially from scratch.
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Watch the full interview above or listen to the RTÉ Soccer podcast episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.
Born in 1971 and a native of Pristina, football was a core part of Bunjaki’s childhood and adolescence.
He would come through the youth ranks of local club FC Prishtina, while harbouring ambitions of becoming a doctor.
But by the time he turned 20, he felt compelled to flee abroad to avoid a compulsory two-year conscription into the Yugoslavian army.
Returning home wasn’t an option as a 20-year prison sentence for evading military service was imposed in absentia.
That meant difficult years watching from afar with concern about family and friends left behind as tensions in Kosovo boiled over into open conflict by the late 1990s, with NATO ultimately intervening.
Football offered some solace and after playing for various clubs in the Swedish lower leagues, Bunjaki decided to transition into coaching at the dawn of the Millennium, including assistant coaching spells at leading clubs like Degerfors and Kalmar.
By then, he had also been able to visit post-war Kosovo and started to implement projects to develop youth football and coaches, helped by contacts in Sweden.
But in his eyes, the “big, big leader” responsible for making Kosovan football’s dream a reality was the late former Yugoslavia international Fadil Vokrri. An idol to Bunjaki in his childhood, Vokrri was regarded as the greatest Kosovan player of his generation.
Current UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin (R) and the late Fadil Vokrri (L) in 2017
In 2008, Vokrri became president of Kosovo’s fledgling football association which, back then, lacked meaningful resources and based itself within a couple of rooms in a Pristina apartment block.
Bunjaki needed little persuasion to take the managerial reins.
“The biggest dream for a coach is to be head coach for the national team, but to be the coach for a national team which you will create for the first time, it’s history,” he says.
Vokrri focused on the push for UEFA and FIFA recognition, while Bunjaki’s task was to build a squad from scratch, all the while not knowing if and when Kosovo would ever be able to play official matches.
He recognised that the local league at the time was not developed enough to select players from. So it was to the diaspora that he turned, with attention focused on northern and central Europe, particularly in countries like Switzerland and Norway.
“During that time, I remember in my room, I had a big map with nails everywhere,” Bunjaki recalls.
“So when I started working with Kosovo, the first thing I was thinking was in a strategic way.
“We needed to have young players and the players needed to come from the youth and national teams from different countries.
Albert Bunjaki during his eight-year spell as Kosovo manager
“If you look during that time, almost 90% of the players who became part of the Kosovo national team started their careers with national teams in different countries – in Sweden, in Norway, in Germany etc.
“The second thing was they needed to be young players because I remember the last (press) conference I had after my last game (in charge) against Iceland, I said to the media that after 10 years you’re going to find a lot of players from my time.
“That was the goal actually when we built the national team. We were thinking all the time (about) how we can build the national team for five years, 10 years into the future.”
Despite a meagre salary of about €300 a month, Bunjaki dipped into his own pocket to fund his travels around the continent in the search for prospective players.
At every stop, the Kosovar Albanian diaspora would prove helpful though, while he also benefited from the friendship and advice of Tord Grip – the long-time former assistant to the late Sven Goran Eriksson – who would later work alongside Bunjaki as Kosovo assistant manager.
“I was talking with grandmothers, grandfathers. I was talking with agents. I was talking with teams,” Bunjaki says.
“You need to explain to them how important is to play one day for Kosovo.
“I was visualising the image (for them) of (what) it is (like) to play in Pristina when your family is up in the stands and (can) see you.
“The challenge was that most of the players were born in different countries, not in Kosovo. But the parents were very important. So I became, with some of them, a good friend and kept a connection with them.
“And after a time, I think the most important (thing) was the project, when you explained to them that we will be the national team with young players with experience from different countries and leagues and we are looking for a national team for the 10 years into the future. Everyone wants to be part of history.”
In 2014, FIFA granted Kosovo the right to play friendlies against its member nations and in March of that year, Haiti would be their first official opponent in Mitrovica.
On a dodgy training pitch in the town of Obilic in the shadow of a power station spewing pollutants into the sky, Bunjaki gathered a disparate band of players together, most of whom didn’t even know each other’s names.
Kosovo in action against Haiti in front of 17,000 fans in Mitrovica
By matchday the clamour for Kosovan fans to see a national team of their own was not lost on him.
“It was raining all the time. It was cold. I woke up in the morning at the hotel and I heard a lot of fans outside. And it was crazy because all the way from Pristina to Mitrovica – I think it’s 50 or 60 kilometres – there were flags and people all the way to the stadium. And you just feel like ‘this is big,'” Bunjaki says.
That 0-0 draw against Haiti was just a beginning. Two years later, would be the real thing.
With FIFA and UEFA membership secured, Kosovo were quickly thrust into a 2018 World Cup qualifying group featuring Croatia, Turkey, Ukraine and an Iceland managed by a certain Heimir Hallgrimsson.
The first competitive match in their history would come against Finland away in Turku in September 2016 and hours before kick-off, Bunjaki and Kosovo were still waiting to find out if six of their key players would receive clearance to play in the match.
“I do remember the night before the game, I was in the room together with Tord Grip and we were planning how to start the game and the setpieces. And we couldn’t do it because most of the players couldn’t play,” Bunjaki says.
It highlighted the perils of building a national team from scratch with a core of players that were switching from other nations. The international clearance would come and ironically the man who scored the equalising penalty for Kosovo in the 1-1 draw – Valon Berisha – was among the half dozen players who were sweating over their eligibility just hours earlier.
Valon Berisha celebrates after scoring the historic equaliser against Finland in Turku
It’s a happy memory for Bunjaki, although it would prove to be the only point gained in that qualifying group, after which he stepped away as manager at the end of the campaign.
But it’s a result that Kosovo has built on exponentially in the nine years since.
The progress made domestically and internationally is what Bunjaki takes particular pride in, especially when he hears anecdotes from the first generation of internationals underlining the debt of gratitude Kosovan football owes him.
“He brought us together and didn’t have an easy job. We didn’t have pitches. We didn’t have a suitable stadium. We’d ride for hours in the bus to Shkoder in Albania to play our home games in the World Cup. Kosovo needs to always thank Albert,” former goalkeeper and current Kosovan FA sporting director Samir Ujkani said in an interview with ESPN in 2019.
For Bunjaki, he is just grateful to have got the ball rolling for Kosovo at the official start of their international football odyssey.
“I’m thankful for that but at the same time I think this is to be part of that history. It makes me honoured. It makes me emotional today. So I’m grateful,” he says.
“Everything didn’t start in 2016, but the time that Kosovo was isolated, everything made it more difficult for us to restart. So I’m not surprised about the development of the national team.”
Thursday and Ireland’s visit to Pristina will be another staging point in that decade-old journey.
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