Team News

The draw for the play-off matches valid for EURO 2024 has been made.

Goggles have determined the matches Poland-Estonia and Wales-Finland in group A.

In group B, Israel will face Iceland and Bosnia will face Ukraine. While in group C, there will be duels between Georgia-Luxembourg and Greece-Kazakhstan.

The semi-final and final matches in the “play-off” phase will take place on March 21-26, 2024.

PLAY-OFF A
Poloni-Estoni
Uells-Finlandë

PLAY-OFF B
Izrael-Islandë
Bosnjë Hercegovinë-Ukrainë

PLAY-OFF C
Gjeorgji-Luksemburg
Greqi-Kazakistan

In addition to the first place in the group, Albania also has the best goal average they have ever had in the qualifiers, +8, 12 goals scored and 4 conceded, but that can be improved even more tonight against the Faroe Islands.

The Albanian national team has scored a goal in every game, except for the loss in Poland in the first challenge. But Albania holds a record together with France that has not conceded a goal at home in these qualifiers, all four goals have been conceded in transfers.

While it is worth noting that all the victories are by 2 goals or more, indicating that the successes under the direction of coach Sylvinho were no coincidence. In 7 matches in the group, 7 different footballers have scored for the Reds and Blacks, Asani and Bajrami have scored 3 goals each, Seferi has scored 2, while Asllani, Muçi, Daku and Cikalleshi have scored 1 each.

So, for Albania, goals were scored by attackers and midfielders. Only 2 penalties were awarded in favor of the Reds and Blacks in these qualifiers, one lost and one scored, in both cases Cikalleshi was the protagonist.

Never before had Albania received 7 positive results in a row, with 5 wins and 2 draws, where 6 of them are official challenges. This record can be deepened tonight against the Faroe Islands.

Moldova managed to equalize Albania in the last minutes.

The 1-1 result in Chisinau brought the Reds and Blacks qualification to Euro 2024, but also kept alive the hopes of the Moldovans to realize their big dream. Serghei Clescenco’s team must win the Prague transfer against the Czech Republic (November 20) to join Albania in Germany 2024. The Moldova coach spoke after the match with the Reds and Blacks, where he said among other things:

“We didn’t win, but we played with incredible energy and gave our best on the field. This means that victory will come in the next game.

Of course, it became more difficult after Albania’s penalty, but in the second half we played much better than in the first. The boys gave everything they had, I am very grateful.

The team was determined to win, this was evident in the second half. Unfortunately, in the first we lacked verticals, we were not very active in attack. But, in the second half, the boys got free, started to attack and we managed to score. However, we have the question of qualification in our hands.

Albania? They didn’t create as much as we did in the second half. I admit, Albania put us in trouble with some quick counterattacks, but we had the cleanest chances. If we had had a little more luck, we would have scored the second goal as well.

We did not expect to ‘press’ the opposing team. The first half was not positive, but we always play better in the second half.There is regret that we did not win, despite the fact that I did not like the first half. But this is football, it happens to all teams that they play a good part of the game and another not so good. The second half clearly showed that we deserved the win. Now we have to go and win in the Czech Republic. We are in shape, we can make it,” declared the 51-year-old coach.

Sinner, 22, won a third-set tie-break to secure the group match 7-5 6-7 (5-7) 7-6 (7-2) in three hours and nine minutes.

It was 36-year-old Djokovic’s first defeat since the Wimbledon men’s final in July.

Earlier, Stefanos Tsitsipas withdrew from the competition through injury.

Tsitsipas, 25, retired through injury against Denmark’s Holger Rune after consulting with a doctor at the changeover.

“It kills me not to be able to finish this tournament,” the Greek said.

Sinner, who will play Rune in his third match, ended Djokovic’s 19-match unbeaten run in front of his home crowd.

However, the 24-time Grand Slam champion can still qualify for the semi-finals by beating Polish ninth seed Hubert Hurkacz, Tsitsipas’ replacement.

After Sinner took the first set, Djokovic levelled and fought back from 4-2 down in the third before being outplayed in the deciding tie-break.

“I think I was really brave and intelligent in important moments. We both played really well, it was a high-level match,” world number four Sinner told Amazon Prime.

“It means a lot to me, when you win against the world number one who has 24 Grand Slams, it’s the top.

“It was a tactical match and I managed to win so I’m really, really happy.”

In the earlier match, Tsitsipas, the world number six, trailed Rune 2-1 in his group match and appeared to be troubled by a back problem and left the court to a few jeers from the crowd inside Pala Alpitour.

“I’m really gutted that I wasn’t able to finish the match,” he said. “It’s a shame also not to give that spot to someone else to at least try and do something with it.

“Unfortunately, I felt terrible on the court. I did what I could do in the best possible way to be ready and fit for this match, but it didn’t work out for me.”

“For sure it was very unfortunate,” 20-year-old Rune said. “Even in the first service game you could see he wasn’t serving anywhere near full like he can, I knew something was off.