Dearly beloved red-and-black guys,
Dearest team captain,
Carissimo Gianni,
Dear President of the Albanian Football Federation,
Friends of the technical team of National Team and of the Federation,
allow me to thank you humbly with all my heart and to express my deepest gratitude for your historic achievement.
Last night, you crowned with success the most difficult and the most exciting race of your life, and of course, of the entire Albanian football history; the two-year race towards an impossible dream. Until two years ago, no one would even dare to dream about it, let alone daydream about it. Perhaps, no one but our coach who, since he received Albanian citizenship, must have certainly had the crazy idea that he could climb the scary top of the European finals with red-and-black shirt.
The unexpected return of the last minutes’ curse in the two games that preceded last night’s apotheosis did fade in the eyes of many the extraordinary dream. In addition, unfortunately, there were more than a few those who behaved badly with you, after the unexpected defeat in the match against Serbia. They forgot everything you had done so far. They forgot that, even if your race towards the dream had stopped there, however, you have given to football, to the Albanian society and to the entire nation, something that no one before you was not even able to imagine: a worthy, competitive and proud Albania who in its group succeeded for the first time in our history to fight and get to the big finals. They forgot that, in the end, you had to face a team that on paper cannot even be compared to ours, nor with respect to individual talents, and even from the monetary point of view. They forgot that our group was a living hell where, after the draw, even the most optimistic would not have dared to bet on the third place, let alone on the direct qualification to go to France. They would not even care about the fact that in the meantime you had achieved the goal of the play-off, while much more renowned European teams did not even reach that goal.
They confused the game with war; the ball with guns; the everlasting love for the colors of the national team with the old hatred for neighbors. And they poured in the social networks with unworthy words against you, our amazing coach and the Albanian Football Federation – I am not counting here at all what they threw against me, because the mud of accusations and anger has been part of my work since always.
Those who have never worn the red-and-black shirt cannot imagine, let alone understand, the heavy burden of responsibility that this shirt, your shirt, bears on your head, shoulders, heart and stomach, and in your hands and feet.
For me that I had the privilege in my youth, for games much less important than yours, and without any pressure from the public on my head, it is easier to imagine how you have felt when every game became a step further towards the scary top. Anyway, when the top seemed very close, in the last three games before the match of the other night, only you could feel the terrible psychological burden you had to bear in order to cope with winds that grew stronger as you climbed altitude. And, basically, the pressure of high altitude winds became a storm that put you down twice in the end. In addition, the second fall in extra time seemed as if the rope had broken one step from the top, thus risking to make us fall into the abyss of an inconsolable despair. I will never forget the scene in the locker room after the final whistle in Elbasan Arena. The tears, the faces of the players hidden in their hands, their rigid bodies as if they were lifeless, the screams of the coach and the captain’s voice translating trying to pull off the latest energies to revive the hope killed. It was the dramatic moment of solitude, on the laborious way to the top. The moment that decides the future and that makes the difference between the real teams, like yours, where the star is made of the unbeatable union of hearts, and the teams that are made of stars of the world, but that can be dissolved, irreversibly, in the venom of the loss. It was a moment of great test of character who decides the fate of every dream, program, team, opposite the flow of unwanted events.
It was one of those moments that decide the course of human destiny or of a team for the years to come, and test people in moments that seem like punishment by their fate. Actually, fate stands by those who do not give up, and your challenge, after the bitter defeat in extra time that seemed like merciless kicks of fate, right next to the dream that was smiling and that now seemed unattainable, was actually with yourself and not with the opponent.
Actually, last night you had the option to either win or lose the match. The fate of Albania’s impossible dream, which you and you alone brought so close, depended only on the strength that you found within yourselves, although crashed and abandoned, in the sudden solitude of the very last part of your journey to the top. As you saw yourself, there are many people who want to hold you in their arms when you win. But when you lose, you can only count on yourself and on those who stayed around. I feel very lucky to be among the latter. And I want to tell you today that I hoped with all my soul, for you first of all, in the victory of last night. But I had prepared anyway this ceremony today, in this room, regardless of the outcome. While I did not dare to imagine the festivities in the street until we got the result.
Today the streets are full of people. Had we lost, we would have been here anyway, but I don’t know how many people would have been in the streets. The truth is that even if this fantastic story hadn’t had a happy ending, it will be remembered for many generations, written with patriotic passion of the unique sports sacrifice, and yet, this National team would have been in the highest peak in the history of the Albanian football, and you would have deserved an equally superb welcome home.
Because, as never before, you made Albania and the Albanians everywhere touch the dream of going to the European Finals. For the first time in the history of the sport, but also to every collective sport in Albania, you gathered Albanians around the arenas of this extremely difficult qualifying group, or in front of the televisions across Albanian territories in the entire world, and turned every game into an excruciating emotional final.
You won, tied, lost, climbed, crashed down and climbed up again, thus writing a glorious page which will undoubtedly shine forever thanks this qualification, but it would not have been lackluster, hadn’t you qualified.
Whether you qualified or not the other night, I would have given anyway to you and to all the red-and-black fans faithful to you, along with the President of the Football Federation, the news that we decided to start immediately with the work to build the National Arena here in Tirana. Another new stadium, obviously the largest in Albania, which will be the biggest home of the red-and-black fans in the capital city of all of Albanians. The National Arena will be dedicated to you, and your names, one by one, will be written at its entrance on a golden plate.
When we built Elbasan Arena, we did because you were homeless in your country and Albania would have been forced to play the matches for the European championship in the neighbor countries. When we started rebuilding from the foundations the stadium “Loro Boriçi” in Shkodra, we did it because you will need a bigger home this year, and didn’t have yet the opportunities and the time to start building the National Arena. “Loro Boriçi” would have been ready for the match with Serbia, but UEFA asked that the match was played in Elbasan due to tight security meausres. Now that you have made the national team the greatest European entrepreneurship of Albania’s, and the national largest attraction, the National Arena of Tirana is an imposition for us.
I do not doubt that the incorrigible cynics, who, as you saw yourselves, are not very few among us, especially when events do not go the way we want, will spew out their venom.
There will also be the culminating expression of the poverty of aspirations, “People don’t have food, and your concern is to deal with sport and the stadiums”, as there were yesterday those who said: “Albania is flooded, the prime minister thinks about football”, as if stadiums deny food to these narrow-minded, or as if my messages for our National team hindered me from doing my duty about the flooding in some areas of the country.
My friend Salihi told me the other night, when we met before your departure to Armenia: “I can’t wait for us to win, and enjoy you telling them to shut up.” Well my friend, the mouths of those who do not know what work means, do not know what it means to bear the burden to achieve results, do not know what it takes to face the storms while you are trying to climb up, will never be shut up. You will hear them again in June telling us who is to blame for not winning the European championship.
This morning, the Prime Minister of Italy sent me this message: “Long live Albania who succeeded to access Europe of Football. Now, we wait for you in Europe of Policy!”
The truth is that the story that you wrote radiates beyond the history of national football. It is a precious lesson for our society, for every Albanian man and woman who give their dreams and hopes wings in the heart and mind, through persistent and big sacrifices, for every Albanian man and woman who, on the road to pursue the dream, rise, fall, stand up again and insists on achieving it.
It is undoubtedly a lesson for all those who do not believe or do not want to believe that European Albania can be done and will be done – however with hard work, perseverance, sacrifice – just like this European National Team. By rejecting the poverty of aspirations that has been whispering in our era for over twenty years telling us, this is Albania, it cannot become a serious country; it cannot become a fair country; it cannot become the earth feeding the dreams and hopes of the youth. Refuting the mental laziness that incites us towards the easiest solutions telling us, try and get for yourselves everything you can for it’s not you who is going to make this a proper country; hold on, things cannot be done immediately; it cannot be done this or that way, for they were not done for a lifetime, imagine if we can do them now. By rejecting the negative spirit that spreads just as an unwanted event blocks the view and takes many people backwards, in the whirlwind of excuses that we cannot deal thoroughly with the things that we want with all your soul.
Had you surrender to the poverty of aspirations, today everyone would have comforted themselves with the fourth position. Had you surrender to the mental laziness, today each of you would be counting how many matches they played and how much they bet in playing with the national team. Had you surrender in front of the negative spirit, after the painful match and the extra time in Elbasan Arena, today the history of these qualifiers would have been different. But you did not give up and built the fate of this National team just like you wanted it to be. This is the great lesson conveyed by the power of your example to our nation, to our two countries, Albania and Kosovo, to society and to the government of Albania.
I am deeply and sincerely grateful to you for the unique strength of this example so brilliant. I am grateful to each of you, from Etrit, who gave me the opportunity to love with all my soul someone called Berisha, to Salihi, thanks to whom I could see closely, in difficult moments, how valuable can be a leader on the bench, after all those years as leader in the field. I am grateful to everyone among you who brought in the national red-and-black team the passion of Kosovo, the strength of Vlora, the talent of Shkodra, the hard-working soul of Fier and Lushnja, and rebel of Kavaja, the pride of Tirana and the ambition of Presevo, which allow me to mention last by wishing Berat, the colossus from Presevo that the fate of his road becomes just as bright as this National team who did not surrender even for a moment in the hard climbing to the top that has already been achieved.
I did not forget. How could I forget? Who can forget him?, the cosmopolitan Captain of our national team, Lorik, Lorik of Albania’s, Lorik of Kosovo’s, Lorik of Albanians’ everywhere, but also Lorik of France’s and Italy’s who put the star of his great talent, increasingly and with all his forces at the service national team, and who led to France De Biasi’s army in this fantastic journey with the irreplaceable force of a veteran. Therefore, I would give the first medal of recognition of this institution, and mine personally, with the greatest privilege I have received from Albanians who put me at the head of this government, and gave me this historical opportunity to have you all before me, to our national team and to our legendary captain, Lorik Cana.
– Lorik Cana receives the Medal of Gratitude of Albania’s Prime Minister of Albania to the National Red-and-Black Team
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But we all know that without De Biasi Albania wouldn’t be today among the 14 teams that have already qualified for the finals of France, while the Netherlands remained at home, and Denmark and other great teams of European football do not know their fate yet; and while others more, among whom Serbia, but I would say all of the strong Balkan teams, risk to watch on television the 2016 European Championship.
Just as I believe that even De Biasi knows, together with his precious and inseparable deputy Tramezzani, that since he started working with the national team he also began work at Rai’s “Sports Sunday”, – for without Albania he would not have made jealous everybody in Italy, with his great talent and his outstanding leadership as a coxswain of football crews.
Carissimo Gianni, very beloved Gianni,
Words cannot express the gratitude to you. It doesn’t occur always in football that results are grateful to the people who dedicate it everything, the soul, the talent, the work. But this time was for you the excellent time, and you deserved it all. So, you will forgive me if the poverty of my words is more visible today in front of the greatness of your work. I and everybody thank you, our beloved Gianni, for giving this nation a joy so unusual. I personally thank you for giving me an example so precious with your persistence to reach the dream, even when everybody else was ready to surrender. Honor to you and your family, who agreed on you migrating in Albania and thoroughly supported you in the crazy search of the Promised Land here, in our homeland. I know that there would be many now those who will want you for their own, in Italy and elsewhere. People with more money and more valued team than our national team, your national team. But we don’t let you go. We have learned this from you. And we will do everything, if we are required, we will seize your Italian passport, and leave you with just the Albanian passport.
Honor to you snd to Tramezzani, the other luxury imigrant, and I invite you to accept this medal of gratitude.
– Gianni De Biasi receives the Medal of Gratitude of Albania’s Prime Minister of Albania to the National Red-and-Black Team
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Last but not least, gratitude for the Albanian Football Federation and its President Armando Duka.
An impossible dream came true yesterday. I have known the President for years, and I know that Armando Duka did not exclude from the horizon of his presidency, the day when all the factors could have come together. We know very well what it means in sports for all the factors to come together. Talent and a talented group of players are not enough. Other teams have them, and today they will see us on TV. Just a coach, no matter how great, is not enough. Organization, no matter how good, to support the team is not enough either, but this framework needs to be supplemented with additional components, including the component of the flow of events.
Today, I can tell you something that I would have dared to tell anyone, hadn’t we been qualified yesterday. Right after the match in Belgrade, the President and I started to talk about the fact that the dream of entering the finals could come true. The reconstruction of the stadium Shkodra has also been part of this topic. Armando and I were probably the only ones who believed that UEFA’s unjust decisions would have been dropped in the Lausanne Cassation.
Three nights ago, when he visited the training camp of the great loneliness, and we finally parted with the President, he told me something stayed on my mind: “We didn’t come here to have it end here.” While last night, after the game, I heard him on TV saying: “It doesn’t end here. We aim for more.” I do not know what more Mr. Duka aims. Perhaps Blateri’s place. But as for me, I have only one aim now, De Biasi’s contract, Mr. President. While every point in France is welcomed but even if it never comes, nothing and nobody can undo this happiness.
Mr. President, for the undeniable merit of the Albanian Football Federation, and yours personally, in this great achievement in the history of our sport in general, and football in particular, please accept the Prime Minister’s Medal of Gratitude.
– Armando Duka, AFF President, receives the Medal of Gratitude of Albania’s Prime Minister of Albania to the National Red-and-Black Team
