The Cornellà sentinel does not play with Spain: he is an Albanian

Perched on top of a Wallthe one that separated the esplanade of the RCDE Stadium for fans eager to celebrate return to First Division of Espanyollast May 9, Keidi Bare (Fier, Albania, 08-28-1997) was terribly happy. AND reckless: several companions and the legendary Tommy N’Kono they had to hold his feet so he wouldn’t fall into the void, about 20 metersin an already symbolic image. “to the rough“, so it also counts that he learned spanish It is international albanian and parakeet -and therefore, paradoxically host tomorrow against the national teameven more so after the departure of Raúl de Tomás–, which came to Spain at the age of 15 and to whom, sadly, hardships like the ones the Ukrainian people are now suffering sound familiar.

“They were very hard times, my parents had a very bad time and I always thank God that they are alive,” he told AS east balkan born right between the Rebellion in Albania –which in the first half of 1997 plunged the country into chaos– and the Kosovo Warwhich ran from 1998 to 1999.”Fighting runs in my family“, certified a Keidi Bare who fortunately does not remember the barbarism but does remember its aftermath. Like having to leaving his country, and his people, when he was only 11 years old because “in Albania he had no future”. He was recruited by Panathinaikosin Greece, where despite being a child he went to live alone. very little before He had spent a week in Barcelona, ​​testing things of fate with Espanyol and Barçafrom the hand of the also Albanian Albert Stroniformer player of Compostela, Mérida or Ourense.

“I sacrificed a lot for football, my childhood without friends and family, to get where I am“, assumed in this newspaper. “I I didn’t know what it was like to have friends, did not go out to play with other boys because everything was the ball. I had a very bad time, fatal, being away from my family at 11 years old, but I had to think about my future, “he reasoned, with an overwhelming intelligence. And the move went well for him. In 2013 he joined the lower categories of Atlético de Madrid, and at the age of 19 he made his debut in the Copa del Rey under the tutelage of Diego Simeone: “The moments that I spent as a child, that I sacrificed and had a bad time, came to my mind, and I said to myself ‘what I have done has been worth it”. A sanction for his disputes with a referee triggered his departure from the rojiblanco club.

It was not until his jump to Málagajust three and a half years ago, when the midfielder was able to meet with his parents, who live with him in Barcelona. signed by him Spanish In the summer of 2020, after relegation, he once again offered another class of what it is to live on the limit when, due to salary cap adjustments, could not be registered until the last week market. “Soccer is make decisions, work hard and have in mind to go far“, he summarized. Today the ‘pitbull‘, as they call him, is indisputable at Espanyol and tomorrow he will lead Albania against Spain at his home, the RCDE Stadium.