Following a dinner in Milan with the president of the Albanian FA, the former full-back from Arsenal, Barcelona, and Manchester City decided to take charge of the national squad.
With former City and West Ham defender Pablo Zabaleta and former Middlesbrough midfielder Doriva serving as his assistants, he arrived at his office in Tirana early in 2023.
They watched 240 game footage in total to get to a list of 70 football players, which they then narrowed down to 39 and lastly to 23 for their Euro 2024 qualifying match against Poland.
Then Wycombe winger Anis Mehmeti was one of them.
Up until then, he had never made an appearance for Albania’s senior team, but he was called up as part of Sylvinho’s early rebuilding efforts.
“Zaba [Zabaleta] has a lot of contacts in England because he played there a long time ago, and he provided us with some information about Mehmeti,” Sylvinho said to Sport.
We began seeing him in League One, but shortly after, he secured a contract with Bristol City in the Championship, which let us realize that, yes, other people may see the same potential we do.
“We were aware that he was one of many Albanians who played overseas.”
All of your effort paid off.
