Edon Zhegrova

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Edon Zhegrova
Edon Zhegrova.jpg
Edon Zhegrova in the offspring
of Standard Lüttich (2015)
Personnel
birthday March 31, 1999
place of birth Herford ,  Germany
size 181 cm
position midfield player
Juniors
Years station
KF Flamurtari
0000–2015 FC Prishtina
2015 Standard Liege
2015-2017 VV St. Truiden
Men's
Years station Games (goals) 1
2017– KRC Genk 19 (5)
2019– →  FC Basel  (loan) 16 (2)
2019– →  FC Basel II  (loan) 2 (0)
National team
Years selection Games (goals) 2
2018– Kosovo 17 (2)
1 Only league games are given.
As of December 5, 2019

2 As of December 5, 2019

Edon Lulzim Zhegrova (born March 31, 1999 in Herford , Germany ) is a Kosovar-Albanian football player on the position of midfielder and is under contract with KRC Genk in the Belgian Pro League and since 2019 on loan from the Swiss club FC Basel . In 2018 he made his debut in the Kosovar national soccer team .

Club career

Childhood and youth

Edon Zhegrova was born on March 31, 1999 in the East Westphalian city ​​of Herford as the son of two Kosovar Albanians from Pristina . The family had fled to Germany because of the Kosovo war , but returned to their homeland after the war, when Edon was just two years old. There he played among other things in the offspring of the KF Flamurtari and was active in the youth of the city rivals FC Prishtina until 2015 . In 2012 he was voted best player of the camp at a youth tournament of AC Milan in Kosovo. In 2015 he moved to Belgium to the local first division club Standard Lüttich , after having been courted by top clubs such as Arsenal , Paris Saint-Germain and FC Barcelona . The transfer came about through the Albanian-born Luan Ahmetaj, the advisor to the then standard striker Imoh Ezekiel . After he was sometimes referred to by the local media as the Messi of Kosovo , after only a short time he was placed in the youth department of the league competitor VV St. Truiden and soon afterwards permanently taken over. In the following two years he went through different age groups and was still courted by various top European clubs; AC Milan, where Zhegrova had already presented himself in 2012, continued to show its interest in the young Kosovar.

First jobs as a professional

Already active in the reserve of the club from Sint-Truiden , the attacking midfielder switched to league rivals KRC Genk in the summer of 2017 after Zhegrova's father said FC Barcelona was interested in his son in March 2017, shortly after the move to Genk was announced reported. Under Albert Stuivenberg he was already in the first game of the season, a 3: 3 draw against Waasland-Beveren , for the first time in a competitive game on the substitute bench of the professional team, but was not yet used. Parallel to the professional team, Zhegrova was also a member of the club's reserve team at this time, including in the following games. On September 10, 2017, the 18-year-old made his professional debut when he came on as a substitute for Ukrainian international Ruslan Malinovski in a 1: 1 away draw against KAA Gent in the 80th minute of the game . In the following championship game, the offensive player contributed a goal assist for his team-mate Siebe Schrijvers in a 2-1 away defeat against his ex-club VV St. Truiden when he also made a brief assignment. In the weeks that followed, he was mostly unused on the substitute bench of the professionals or came on for the reserve, before he came to a series of mostly longer assignments in the Belgian first class from the end of November. In the 1-1 home draw against KAS Eupen on December 9, 2017, the last game under Dutch coach Albert Stuivenberg, he scored his team's 1-0 lead in the 41st minute after Alejandro Pozuelo presented a left-footed shot his first competitive goal as a professional.

Under Stuivenberg's successor Philippe Clement , against whose previous team Zhegrova had made his professional debut, the Kosovar, who was mostly used alternately as left and right winger, continued to make regular appearances. From the beginning of February 2018 he was mostly back in the reserve team and played twelve regular-time games throughout the 2017/18 season , contributing one goal and two assists. As fifth place in the regular season, KRC Genk subsequently took part in the championship round, Play-off 1, and also finished it in 5th place, which is a starting place in the final for participation in the possible Europa League play-offs 2018 / 19 meant. In the final game on May 27, 2018, Genk beat SV Zulte Waregem 2-0 and qualified for the second qualifying round for the 2018/19 UEFA Europa League. Zhegrova also made appearances in the Belgian Football Cup 2017/18 , in which his team made it to the final and lost 1-0 to his former club Standard Liège.

Since February 4, 2019, Zhegrova has been on loan to the Swiss first division club FC Basel for 16 months . With the club he won the national cup at the end of the 2018/19 season with a 2-1 win over FC Thun in Bern . In addition, thanks to his seven appearances in the first half of the 2018/19 season for KRC Genk, he was able to celebrate winning the Belgian championship in his absence .

National team career

Zhegrova declined to join the Kosovar U-21 squad because he wanted to concentrate on his time at KRC Genk. Should he receive a call-up from Albert Bunjaki to the senior national team , he would consider playing for it, said Zhegrova in an interview in the summer of 2017. At the beginning of March 2018, the then 18-year-old decided if he was called up wanting to play for Kosovo first coach Bernard Challandes . Less than two weeks later, Challandes gave him his first call-up for the Kosovar senior team for two friendly international matches against Madagascar and Burkina Faso . On March 24, 2018, he made his debut in the game against England, when he was on the grass from the start and scored the only goal of the game with a long shot in the 47th minute of the game, before being substituted in the 80th minute and by Idriz Voca , another debutant , has been replaced. Four days before his 19th birthday, Zhegrova completed half-time in a 2-0 win over Burkina Faso on March 27, and was replaced by Milot Rashica at half-time . About two months later, he played another friendly international match against Albania , for which he would also be eligible, and contributed another goal in the 3-0 win.

successes

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Genkenaar stuurt bondscoach wandelen: "Ik had daar weinig zin in" (Dutch), accessed on July 16, 2018
  2. ↑ Dash FRASHËRI / “Taçi Oil” dhe “Milan Junior Kamp” çojnë dhjetë talente kosovarë në “San Siro” (Albanian), accessed on July 16, 2018
  3. ↑ Goal.com: Edon Zhegrova, supertalenti nga Kosova që ëndërron Barcelonën (Albanian), accessed on July 16, 2018
  4. ↑ a b c d e f g Edon Zhegrova: The superlative magnet from Kosovo , accessed on July 17, 2018
  5. ↑ a b Arsenal, PSG chasing 'Kosovo Messi' Edon Zhegrova (English), accessed on July 17, 2018
  6. ↑ MESSI BUSINESS - Lionel Messi: From the 'Scottish Messi' Ryan Gauld to the 'Kosovo Messi' Edon Zhegrova… how have the wonderkids dubbed 'the new Lionel Messi' fared? (English), accessed on July 17, 2018
  7. ↑ Edon Zhegrova nënshkruan me Genk (Albanian), accessed July 17, 2018
  8. ↑ Qui joue quand en Europe? (French), accessed July 17, 2018
  9. ↑ Emond knikt Standard na verlengingen naar bekerwinst ( Memento of the original from July 12, 2018 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (Dutch), accessed July 17, 2018 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / archief.sporza.be
  10. ↑ Edon Zhegrova i thotë “Po” Kosovës (Albanian), accessed on July 17, 2018
  11. ↑ Lista e futbollistëve të ftuar nga Bernard Challandes për miqësoret e marsit (Albanian), accessed on July 17, 2018
  12. ↑ Challandes e nis me fitore, Zhegrova debuton me gol (Albanian), accessed July 17, 2018
  13. ↑ Kosova e mposhti edhe Burkina Fason (Albanian), accessed on July 17, 2018
  14. ↑ Kosova e fiton me Spektël miqësoren kundër Shqipërisë (Albanian), accessed on July 17, 2018
personal data
SURNAME Zhegrova, Edon
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Zhegrova, Edon Lulzim (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Kosovar Albanian soccer player
DATE OF BIRTH March 31, 1999
PLACE OF BIRTH Herford , Germany