Three-passport Cana opts for Albania

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Three-passport Cana opts for Albania
Capped a record 89 times, Cana has played in France, England, Turkey and Italy.

Published: Tue 7 Jun 2016, 10:24 PM

Last updated: Wed 8 Jun 2016, 12:27 AM

"If I wanted to write a script I couldn't have done it better," according to Kosovo-born Lorik Cana who will lead Albania at Euro 2016, their first ever appearance at a major tournament.
"My goal was always to play for Albania on the big stage," the 32-year-old defender told AFP in an interview. "It makes it more special that it will happen in France, the country where I grew up with football, where my family lives," said Cana, who lived in France from the age of 17.
In fact, he holds three passports: Albania, Switzerland where he spent 10 childhood years, and France which he calls "my second home".
But Cana, who speaks Albanian and is fiercely proud of his identity, never had any doubt that his allegiance was with the "Kuq e Zinjte" (Red and Blacks). "I had the chance to grow up in a patriotic family that always placed huge importance on preserving our language and culture," he said.
One of several Kosovo-born players on the team - along with Fredierik Veseli, Berak Djimsiti, and Amir Rahmani - Cana's family moved from his birthplace Pristina, then part of Yugoslavia, now capital of Kosovo, to Switzerland in 1990 just before the Yugoslav wars broke out.
The journeys of refugees and emigrants as well as awareness of the hardships suffered by people who stayed behind gave him his desire to succeed, he said.
The team - which includes many second-generation children of migrants to Switzerland, Germany, and Austria - has a similar make-up to Albanians themselves, "who are more numerous outside the country than inside it," he told AFP. It is a symbol of "national pride," he added.
Capped a record 89 times, Cana has played in France (with over 200 appearances at three different Ligue 1 clubs), England, Turkey and Italy. His experience is unparallelled in the squad.
"He is more than a player, he is the heart of the team, the boss of the dressing-room," said Albania's Italian coach Gianni de Biasi, who relies on his Italian-speaking captain to help translate team talks.
"He helps me get across to the players my philosophy and my vision," said de Biasi.
After Cana attracted the attention of PSG as a teenager, the family moved to France, where a seven-year stint in Ligue 1 began in 2002, first with PSG, then with Olympique de Marseille who he eventually captained. He then spent a season in Sunderland - where he was the first Albanian to play in the English Premier League - and another at Galatasaray in Turkey.Four years in Italy with Lazio followed between 2011 and 2015 before a return to France, and Nantes.
Two of the Euro 2016 Group A games have particular resonance for Cana.
Albania open their campaign in Lens against Switzerland, the land of his youth on June 11, exactly 13 years after his international debut aged 19, also against the Alpine nation.
Adding extra spice to that tie are the many players with Albanian or Kosovo origins in the Swiss squad, including their trio of stars: Xerdan Shaqiri, Granit Xhaka, and Valon Behrami.
Next up are France on June 15 in Cana's former stomping ground the Stade Velodrome in Marseille where he played for four seasons and where his family still lives.
Returning to the Velodrome is a "beautiful twist of fate," he told AFP.

By AFP

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