Riza Lushta (1916-1997) | Story of Albanians in Serie “A”!

Riza Lushta
Albanian striker who was successful player in Serie “A”, before the WW2!

He did not die rich, Riza Lushta, but rather poor and forgotten by the world of football, as often happens to old glories whose memory yellows in the memory of the fans. But at least in Italy, he had lived a short season of his life to the full, the season of football and kicks to misfortune and bad luck.

1.
He was born on February 2, 1916 in Mitrovica, in the land now sadly famous throughout the world of Kosovo. The family had soon emigrated to Tirana and when the talent for football gave the first cries he was registered by Sport Club Tirana.
Agile and dry, dribbling and shooting as football dictates, it took him little to establish himself in the Albanian championship, of which he quickly became the star, the best. When in 1939 the lightning occupation decided by the fascist regime made Albania a province of Italy, the best footballers of the country entered the sights of Italian clubs. In the summer of that year, Bari played a friendly against Sport Club Tirana, remaining very impressed by the lively left-footed striker and signed him.
The beginnings were not easy: 15 games, just 3 goals. One of these, however, weighed decisively on Lushta’s career. He scored it against Juventus, in a game played great, which convinced the “bianconeri” directors to buy him for the following tournament.
And in the next three seasons, from 1940 to 1943, the last three championships while the war was already raging, Riza Lushta proved to be up to the task, often giving great satisfaction to the fans, in a very promising crescendo: 10 goals in the first year, 15 in the second, 17 in the third.

Here bad luck took its revenge, as the war interruption stopped his rise among the best strikers in the championship, when he was considered second only to the great Piola. After the war he found employment in Naples: 6 goals in 27 games and at the end of the season the brilliant striker, now thirty, emigrated to Alessandria, where still in “A” he scored 13 times in 26 games.

After an operation on the meniscus that kept him out of the playing fields for a long time, starting his decline. After the second season in Alessandria (4 goals in 21 games), he closed his Italian career with three seasons in the lower leagues: first at Siena, in “C”, then in the fourth series, at Forli and finally at Rapallo.

In 1954 he went to squeeze the last competitive fruits in France, in Cannes, after which he definitively closed football. One of the greatest Albanian players, he burned all bridges behind him and emigrated to the United States of America, where he found work as an elevator operator.

However, his nostalgia for Italy was great, and it led him to return at the end of the sixties. He settled in Turin: he had a US passport and the minimum pension of the star-spangled country (a pittance), but above all he still had many friends from the good old days and a family of fans who hosted him for twenty years in Via San Pio V, near the Porta Nuova station.

He lived peaceful years, for a long-time following football directly (he remembered) with gratitude that Juventus had not forgotten about him and as long as his health had allowed him, he had always found a ticket for the match at the headquarters. On February 4, 1997, he went to take a nap after lunch and did not wake up again. He was taken to the “Mauriziano” Hospital where the doctors diagnosed a heart attack.

He had given instructions to be buried in the Muslim sector of the southern cemetery. At his funeral some old Juventus teammates and a few friends.

In the Italian championship, apart from Lushta, also played, the greatest player all the time, Loro Borici (Lazie), Naim Kryeziu, who won the title “Scudetto” with Roma in 1942, Slave Llambi, Vasfi Bicaku!

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By Pjerin Bj | exclusivity in this page holds the date October 18, 2024

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