Classroom lesson · Sport · 🇦🇱 Albania

Football in Albania - the red-and-black eagles

The country's most-played and most-watched sport

Albanian national football team players in red shirts on a pitch

Photo · Wikimedia Commons

What is it?

Football is by far the most popular sport in Albania. Children play it in playgrounds, in fields, on the street, on the beach - anywhere there's a bit of flat ground and something that looks like a goal. The men's national team wears red shirts and is nicknamed the 'Kuq e Zinjtë' - the 'Red and Blacks'.

Tell me more

Albanian football fans are famous for being very loud. When the national team plays, the whole stadium chants together. The team's biggest moment was reaching the Euro 2016 finals - their first time in a major tournament - and the whole country watched together in cafés and town squares.

Children grow up supporting one of the big Albanian club teams - KF Tirana, Partizani, Vllaznia. On a Saturday afternoon you'll see lots of red, white and blue scarves on the streets of Tirana. Football conversations carry on long after the match has ended.

Quite a few Albanian footballers also play for the national teams of other countries. Many Albanian families moved abroad for work over the past decades, so there are top players representing Switzerland, Belgium, Italy and more whose grandparents grew up in Albania or Kosovo. The double-headed eagle hand sign - made by crossing your thumbs - is sometimes flashed by these players when they score, to honour their heritage.

Like the rest of Europe, Albania is football-mad without needing a big stadium to enjoy it. A goal can be two backpacks. A pitch can be the schoolyard. The most important kit is a ball - and a friend on the other side ready for a kick-around.

In the classroom

Walk your class through this in 15 minutes.

Talk together

Discussion prompts

  1. 01Why do you think football is the most-played sport in so many countries?
  2. 02What's a hand sign or chant your school uses to celebrate winning something?
  3. 03Some Albanian footballers play for other countries. What does that say about families and football today?
Try this

Classroom activity

As a class, organise a 'no-shoes-needed' 5-minute football mini-match in the hall with a soft ball. Two backpacks for each goal, no slide tackles, everyone plays. Then discuss: what made it fun? What rules would you keep?