Former Fenerbahçe player Vedat Muriqi: 'He was like a monster'

Vedat Muriqi, who played for Giresunspor, Gençlerbirliği, Çaykur Rizespor, and Fenerbahçe in our country, gave an exclusive interview to La Gazzetta dello Sport.

Here are the highlights from Vedat Muriqi's statements:

"During my childhood and adolescence, I had the thought that I would never be a professional footballer.

I was born in 1994. A few years after my birth, the war broke out. Soldiers came to the house and told us to leave because they had to burn it down. We migrated to Albania.

What were the German soldiers giving us? Hunger, fear, hardships... Then the war ended, and just as we started to breathe, we took another heavy blow. My father died before my eyes while playing five-a-side football with his friends. He was a footballer and then switched to handball. He was an athlete. And he was just gone."

"AN OFFER YOU COULD NOT REFUSE CAME"

"I had an extraordinary season with Fenerbahçe. I was great in Turkey, but an offer came that you could not refuse. Serie A, the Champions League, a beautiful club that decided to invest 20 million euros in me. A step forward. I knew that Immobile, who had the Golden Shoe, Correa, and Caicedo were there, but I thought they would bet on me by spending that much money, and I was not wrong. Simone Inzaghi played me whenever he found the opportunity, but I missed out. No excuses, no blame, just my own fault. Such things happen in football, and when they do, you have to make room for someone else. I had a thigh problem, and my pregnant wife had stayed in Turkey. I was alone, and it was difficult to settle in. I was sick on and off the pitch. My head perhaps suffered more than my body. I started to think that I was very poor and that that wonderful year in Turkey was only thanks to luck and the will of God. I fell into dark thoughts."

"A MONSTER TACTICALLY"

Maurizio Sarri is a monster tactically. He is the best coach I have ever seen. I didn't play with him, but I enjoyed it very much both in matches and in training. The problem is that he liked to play with short strikers. He had given playing time to Insigne, Callejon, and Mertens. At Lazio, he gave time to Felipe Anderson, Immobile, and Zaccagni, and he didn't know what to do with a big player like me. He was a golden person.

"HE HELPED ME LEAVE"

I remember there were fans who heckled me while I was training because I took shots and couldn't find the target. I laughed; I didn't even care about these criticisms, but Sarri got very angry, stopped the training, and said that if they didn't stop, he would end all training sessions. 'Wow, what a man,' I thought. In December, since I wasn't playing at all, I went to him to ask what he thought about me, I asked where I could improve, and he explained the reason for purely tactical reasons. 'You are a magnificent person, everyone loves you, you have a magnificent character, but I don't like players like you.' It was a magnificent, honest, transparent conversation. I thanked him with all my heart and asked if he would help me leave, and he did. I transferred to Mallorca, and the rest followed."