DREAM / The Prime Minister resigns and wakes up under the Parisian bridge!

 Kliko këtu për të tjera
Voxpress:

Five million pesetas and the threat of bribes, the dark challenges Albania-Spain in the 90s

2024-06-24 19:30:07Sport SHKRUAR NGA REDAKSIA VOX
Five million pesetas and the threat of bribes, the dark challenges Albania-Spain
Five million pesetas and the threat of bribes, the dark challenges Albania-Spain in the 90s

There have been five confrontations between Spain and Albania, all with the victory of the Iberian team. But it must have been six. In December 1991, La Roja, then managed by Vicente Miera, closed out their group stage qualifiers for Euro 92 in Sweden against the Eagles, a tournament from which the Reds had been eliminated.

The political and economic situation in Albania was extremely tense, immediately after the fall of the "Iron Curtain", writes the prestigious Spanish sports magazine " AS ".

The Albanians were not in the game at all either and the RFEF asked UEFA not to play the match in order not to endanger their players.

Miera, who weeks ago had replaced Luis Suarez due to the poor results of the Spanish national team, focused the team.

The Spanish team was waiting for the meeting as if a nuclear apocalypse was going to happen: equipped with a large amount of food and materials due to the lack of confidence in the sanitary conditions in Albania. But in the end UEFA decided to cancel the match.

Albania protested and asked for a new date to fulfill the commitment to its fans, as thousands of them had already bought tickets for the match.

In the end, the highest European body got rid of the problem by compensating the Albanian national team with 5 million pesetas (about 30 thousand euros at the exchange rate at the time).

And the "dirtiest" money would be talked about again a year and a few months later, in September 1993.

The draw had pitted the Spaniards and the Albanians again in a qualifier, this time for the World Cup in the United States of America.

"La Roja" had to win by several goals and, as it was later published in the Albanian press, an intermediary who came in with the team's charter, offered the Spanish Federation the possible purchase of the match.

"We are all crazy," then-president Ángel María Villar responded to the insinuation, according to the newspaper's archive.

Javier Clemente led a side that actually won 1-5 with a hat-trick from striker Julio Salinas in what was and still is Albania's heaviest defeat at home in its history.

Newspapers in Tirana speculated for several days about something wrong and even requested an investigation by UEFA, but nothing else came of it.

From the results between Spain and Albania, a 9-0 on December 19, 1990 stands out, also on the way to that Euro 92, which is the last major tournament that "La Roja" has lost.

It was played at "Ramón Sánchez-Pizjuán" and Emilio Butragueño managed to score a "poker" of goals, much more unknown than that of Querétaro against Denmark (1-5) in the round of 16 of the World Cup in Mexico. 86.


Në përputhje me standarded JTI

Video

SHIKO KANALIN NE YOUTUBE
×