Bekim Balaj

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Bekim Balaj
Bekim Balaj 2016.jpg
Bekim Balaj (2016)
Personnel
birthday January 11, 1991
place of birth Shkodra ,  Albania
size 188 cm
position striker
Juniors
Years station
2002-2009 KS Vllaznia Shkodra
Men's
Years station Games (goals) 1
2009-2010 KS Vllaznia Shkodra 38 0(9)
2010-2011 Gençlerbirliği Ankara 1 0(0)
2011–2012 KF Tirana 37 (15)
2012-2014 Sparta Prague 12 0(3)
2013-2014 →  Jagiellonia Białystok  (loan) 31 0(7)
2014 Slavia Prague 13 0(3)
2015-2016 HNK Rijeka 46 (18)
2016-2019 Terek Grozny / Achmat Grozny 61 (12)
2019– SK Sturm Graz 28 0(6)
National team
Years selection Games (goals) 2
2008-2010 Albania U-19 6 0(3)
2010–2012 Albania U-21 13 0(4)
2012– Albania 31 0(6)
1 Only league games are given.
Status: July 1, 2020

2 As of March 28, 2019

Bekim Balaj (born January 11, 1991 in Shkodra ) is an Albanian football player who is mainly used as a striker . Balaj is currently under contract with the Austrian Bundesliga club SK Sturm Graz . He also plays for the Albanian national team .

Career

society

Bekim Balaj was born in Reç in the Shkodra region in 1991 and began his career as a football player with the regional football club KS Vllaznia Shkodra . For this he made his first appearance at the age of 17 in the Superiors , the top Albanian league. After two years with the professionals, Balaj moved to Ankara in Turkey , where he was unable to prevail in the Süper Lig at Gençlerbirliği Ankara and left the club for Albania after only one assignment. There he played in Tirana for KF Tirana and was able to win the Albanian Cup twice and the Super Cup with this club. He then played in Prague and Białystok and in Rijeka . His time in the 1st HNL was successful, as he was runner-up in both seasons with the HNK Rijeka and was able to gain international experience in the Europa League . He was also one of the ten most successful goal scorers in the entire league in the 2015/16 season .

On June 8, it was announced that Balaj would move to the Russian first division club Terek Grozny , where he signed a three-year contract. In his third game for Grozny Balaj achieved his first goal for his new club with the intermittent 1-0 lead in the away game at FK Ufa . Terek Grozny finished the season in 5th place and narrowly missed participation in the European competitions. Balaj scored nine goals in 26 games and was thus the most successful goalscorer of his team, at the same time he was the 5th best goalscorer in the entire Premjer League.

In his second season in Grozny, his club, in memory of Akhmat Abdulchamidowitsch Kadyrov , took the name Akhmat Grozny. In terms of sport, this season was much worse for Balaj than his first. Balaj could not score a goal in the entire season and came to only 13 appearances, of which only two went over the full season. In the Russian Cup he could not book a stake. His club, Achmat Grozny, finished the season in ninth place, which means that it remains first-class in the 2018/2019 season , but again failed to qualify for the international competitions.

This season Balaj could not appear again for a long time with a goal before he was able to create the tie in the league game against Ural Oblast Sverdlovsk on March 11 with a penalty goal . This was his first league goal since May 2017, which was followed by two more goals this season. At the end of the season Achmat Grozny was again in the midfield of the league, with eighth place being reached this season. For Balaj this was the last season in Grozny, he left the club at the end of the season.

In July 2019 he moved to Austria for SK Sturm Graz , where he received a contract that ran until June 2021. In his first Bundesliga game Balaj was able to score his first goal for his new club on the first day of play against Wolfsberger AC with the 1-0 winning goal for Sturm Graz.

National team

Balaj played through the Albanian U-19 and U-21 national team before he was first used for the senior team in 2012 . Although Balaj, played previously in 2010, wearing the jersey of the national team, but this performance is not generally regarded as an international match since he faced the choice of Kosovo took place, the Football Association at the time, neither of the UEFA , nor the FIFA was recognized . In that game he scored a goal. While he could not qualify for major tournaments with the youth selection team, he reached the qualification for the European Championship 2016 with the national team. Here he also had a personal share by scoring the 1-0 final score against the Portuguese in the first match of the qualification Selection scored.

In the UEFA EURO 2016 in France, he was in the Albanian contingent added. There he was substituted on for Armando Sadiku on the 3rd match day of the group round in the 59th minute in a 1-0 lead in the game against Romania and thus came on for his first appearance at a European Championship. Despite the victory, the team was eliminated as one of the two worst third party groups.

During qualifying for the 2018 World Cup in Russia, Balaj was used in a total of four games and scored two goals. Albania was third in Group G, behind Spain and Italy, unable to qualify for the World Cup.

successes

Web links

Commons : Bekim Balaj  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ List of goalscorers on the website of the Russian Federation (English, accessed on May 21, 2017)
  2. ↑ Team player for Sturm-Sturm sksturm.at, on July 26, 2019, accessed on July 26, 2019
  3. ↑ Report on the Balajs award (Albanian; last accessed on June 10, 2016)
personal data
SURNAME Balaj, Bekim
BRIEF DESCRIPTION albanian soccer player
DATE OF BIRTH January 11, 1991
PLACE OF BIRTH Shkodra , Albania