Albert Bunjaku
 Bunjaku at practice with 1. FC Nürnberg in 2010. | |||
| Personal information | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Full name | Albert Bunjaku | ||
| Date of birth | 29 November 1983 | ||
| Place of birth | Gnjilane, SFR Yugoslavia | ||
| Height | 1.80 m (5 ft 11 in) | ||
| Playing position | Striker | ||
| Club information | |||
Current team | FC St. Gallen | ||
| Number | 10 | ||
| Youth career | |||
| 1996–1998 | FC Schlieren | ||
| 1998–2000 | Grasshopper Club Zürich | ||
| 2000–2003 | SC Young Fellows Juventus | ||
| Senior career* | |||
| Years | Team | Apps† | (Gls)† |
| 2003–2005 | FC Schaffhausen | 39 | (3) |
| 2006 | SC Paderborn 07 | 10 | (1) |
| 2006–2009 | FC Rot-Weiß Erfurt | 74 | (34) |
| 2009–2012 | 1. FC Nürnberg | 55 | (14) |
| 2012–2014 | 1. FC Kaiserslautern | 31 | (13) |
| 2014– | FC St. Gallen | 0 | (0) |
| National team‡ | |||
| 2004–2006 | Switzerland U21 | 15 | (7) |
| 2009–2010 | Switzerland | 6 | (0) |
| 2014– | Kosovo | 3 | (2) |
| * Senior club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only and correct as of 6 August 2014. † Appearances (Goals). | |||
Albert Bunjaku (born 29 November 1983)[1] is a Swiss-Kosovar football player who plays for FC St. Gallen. He represented Switzerland at the 2010 FIFA World Cup. Now he plays as a forward for the Kosovo national football team.
Club career
When Bunjaku was eight years old, he moved with his mother and two brothers to Switzerland, where his father was already working. Bunjaku joined his first club at 13 – unusually late for a future professional. Before starting out with FC Schlieren, he only played football in the schoolyard or on the five-a-side court. At that stage he was also very keen on basketball.
"I actually always used to play right back in the early days. At some point I was transformed into a striker and that worked out very well. I feel at home up front, I think it's a good position for me and I always try to give it 100 percent", Bunjaku says in summary of his career to date.
Bunjaku's first step on the professional ladder was at FC Schaffhausen in the Challenge League, Switzerland's second division. The team won promotion to the Super League in 2003–04 and over the course of the next 18 months the young forward made 39 top-flight appearances.
In January 2006, the 23-year-old Bunjaku left Schaffhausen for 2. Bundesliga side SC Paderborn. His first staging post in Germany was destined to last just six months however, as he failed to establish himself under then-coach Jos Luhukay. "At the time I didn't have the feeling he was Bundesliga material", Luhukay says now. As a result, Bunjaku found himself unemployed in the summer of 2006.
Then however, a chance conversation turned Bunjaku's fortunes around. His wife Arieta worked in a boutique in Paderborn frequented by the wife of former Paderborn coach Pavel Dochev. They struck up a conversation and it transpired that Dotchev, now in charge of Rot-Weiß Erfurt, was on the lookout for a striker. No sooner said than done, and Bunjaku was on the move to third-division Erfurt.
He first came to the attention of the wider footballing public when Rot-Weiß Erfurt took on Bayern Munich in a DFB Cup tie on 10 August 2008. Coming on as a second-half substitute in what was Jürgen Klinsmann's competitive debut as Bayern coach, Bunjaku put two goals past the record champions, who eventually squeezed past their lower-league opponents 4–3.
International career
On 14 November 2009, Bunjaku made his international debut for Switzerland in the 0–1 home loss to Norway in a friendly match after coming on as a substitute for Alexander Frei at half time. He was part of the Swiss squad for the 2010 FIFA World Cup, playing the last 13 minutes of the group match against Chile after coming on for Gelson Fernandes.[2] Bunjaku played in Kosovo's first FIFA-approved match, against Haiti in a 0–0 home friendly on 5 March 2014.[3] Bunjaku played for Kosovo against Turkey on 21 May 2014 and scored its first international goal.
International goals
Scores and results table. Kosovo' goal tally first:
| # | Date | Venue | Opponent | Score | Result | Competition |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | 21 May 2014 | Olympic Stadium Adem Jashari, Mitrovica, Kosovo |  Turkey | 1–2 | 1–6 | Friendly |
| 2. | 25 May 2014 | Stade de Genève, Genève, Switzerland |  Senegal | 1–1 | 1–3 | Friendly |
References
- ↑ "Hitzfeld: "Bunjaku ist ein Thema"" (in German). Sportal.ch. 5 November 2009. Retrieved 17 June 2012.
- ↑ "Chile 1-0 Switzerland". BBC Sport. Retrieved 14 April 2014.
- ↑ "Kosovo 0-0 Haiti". FootballDatabase.eu. Retrieved 14 April 2014.
External links
- Albert Bunjaku at National-Football-Teams.com
- Albert Bunjaku at fussballdaten.de (German)
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