Inside Arena Kombëtare, more than 20,000 supporters caught their breaths and trained every last squint of focus on Rey Manaj. Outside, the legions who had flooded into Tirana all day just to be part of things, some queueing at borders before racing to bars and public viewings through the heat, clasped their beers. Albania had been awarded a penalty and nobody cared that it was soft; if Manaj kept his nerve then maybe a football hero could finally be born, the accursed feel around this fixture banished at long last.
Manaj straightened up, perhaps a little too much, and approached the ball head on. If he needed any reminder of the context he could always heed the reverberations of home fans making obscene chants about the visitors’ sisters that had formed much of the day’s soundtrack and had only just paused before he stepped up. The shot was low, far too close to Djordje Petrovic and firmly pawed to safety. The half-time whistle sounded immediately, members of Serbia’s delegation making a beeline for the pitch to embrace their keeper. For Manaj, all that lingered was the frozen image of a moment he had failed to meet.
