{"id":74907,"date":"2025-06-23T07:54:48","date_gmt":"2025-06-23T07:54:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kosovapress.com\/eng\/admin\/?p=74907"},"modified":"2025-06-23T07:54:49","modified_gmt":"2025-06-23T07:54:49","slug":"four-kosovar-teams-in-european-competitions-share-their-ambitions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kosovapress.com\/eng\/admin\/four-kosovar-teams-in-european-competitions-share-their-ambitions\/","title":{"rendered":"Four Kosovar teams in European competitions share their ambitions"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Drita, Ballkani, Prishtina, and Malisheva are the teams representing Kosovo\u2019s football in the new 2025\/26 European competition season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Following the draw held earlier this week at UEFA headquarters in Switzerland, each team has now learned their opponents in their respective competitions \u2014 and none of them will be easy. Despite this, club leaders from Kosovo remain optimistic about progressing to the next rounds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The director of Drita Football Club, which is also the reigning champion of Kosovo, Feti Murseli, told\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/kosovapress.com\/\">KosovaPress<\/a>\u00a0that in the Champions League there are no easy opponents, but he is optimistic they will eliminate Differdange from Luxembourg.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;Compared to previous years, it\u2019s a better draw \u2014 I wouldn\u2019t say easier, because there are no easy teams in football, especially in the Champions League. We played in Luxembourg back in 2018 in the Europa League, and were eliminated then. I hope this year we can change that and qualify for the second round of the Champions League, which would be a big success for us and for Kosovar football in general&#8230; The sporting director and the coaching staff have prepared the squad list. We have two new signings who haven\u2019t joined the team yet and potentially another one that we\u2019re waiting on by the end of the month. Otherwise, the team is complete,&#8221; Murseli stated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>On the other hand, Prishtina will face Sheriff Tiraspol in the first round of the Europa League. The club&#8217;s director, Artan Osmani, said that Sheriff is not in the same strong form as in previous years, which increases Prishtina\u2019s chances of progressing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;Realistically, we expected a tough draw \u2014 any team we could\u2019ve drawn would\u2019ve been difficult. I think we have a chance, we need to play a good game, and as the coach said, get a positive result as the visiting team, then we can hope for something. Either way, we have to give our maximum. I believe we have a chance, fortunately our opponent is not as strong as they were a few years ago when they had a much more valuable squad. This year they are a bit weaker, so I believe we have a shot,&#8221; Osmani said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Malisheva, in the first round of the Europa Conference League, will face Vikingur Reykjavik from Iceland \u2014 a team that, according to club director Sami Boroci, deserves respect due to its extensive European experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;The opponent is not the easiest possible \u2014 they\u2019re a quality team that is currently in their domestic season and actively competing, so naturally they\u2019re more consolidated. They left their mark in last year\u2019s European competitions and have a solid history, so it\u2019s a team to be respected. It won\u2019t be an easy match, but we\u2019re making the necessary preparations to advance from this round, and we are very optimistic that we will go through,&#8221; Boroci stated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Unlike the other three teams, Kosovo\u2019s runner-up, Ballkani, will begin its journey in the Europa Conference League from the second round, where they will face the winner of the matchup between Floriana FC (Malta) and Haverfordwest County AFC (Wales).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Drita, Ballkani, Prishtina, and Malisheva are the teams representing Kosovo\u2019s football in the new 2025\/26 European competition season. Following the draw held earlier this week at UEFA headquarters in Switzerland, each team has now learned their opponents in their respective competitions \u2014 and none of them will be easy. Despite this, club leaders from Kosovo [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":74908,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[301,296,300],"tags":[3081,1950,453,434],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kosovapress.com\/eng\/admin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74907"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kosovapress.com\/eng\/admin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kosovapress.com\/eng\/admin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kosovapress.com\/eng\/admin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kosovapress.com\/eng\/admin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74907"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/kosovapress.com\/eng\/admin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74907\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":74909,"href":"https:\/\/kosovapress.com\/eng\/admin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74907\/revisions\/74909"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kosovapress.com\/eng\/admin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/74908"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kosovapress.com\/eng\/admin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74907"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kosovapress.com\/eng\/admin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74907"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kosovapress.com\/eng\/admin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74907"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}