Sulejman Maliqati (1928-2022) “The Black Cat” | The Albanian Goalkeeper, who never used gloves!

The Warden of Partisan, Maliqati!
Stories of champions without similarities to each other!

A goalkeeper wearing a black uniform, he was like a dark knight guarding the net. A ninja, swift and silent in his movements. A wall, impenetrable and unyielding in his defense.

We only need to mention what the newspaper “Deutsche Sport Echo” wrote half a century ago after the friendly host tournament in Leipzig, East Germany, when it described Maliqati as the “Black Cat” of Albanian goalkeeping, to understand the greatness of this goalkeeper, where he undoubtedly enters the golden constellation of the greatest Albanian goalkeepers.

Reflexes, agility, and daring plastic throws were some of the qualities of the Albanian “Black Cat”, who is considered the goalkeeper who never used gloves!!

Born on August 1st in Kavaja. S. Maliqati came into contact with football at a young age of only 13-14 years old when he followed the Kavaja team in training.

His involvement as a player in this sport is a story in itself. After work, Maliqati would often go to the place where the team was training. One day, the team that was training was looking for a goalkeeper.

Someone saw him off the field and invited him to try out as a goalkeeper. From that moment on, his life would change, becoming closely linked to football, which he would never part with even after leaving the field.

Initially, he will play in 1947-1948 with the Kavaja union team, for 3 seasons. Then his entire career is connected with the Partizan team and our national team. It should be mentioned that Maliqati has also developed special challenges with other teams, but is regularly kept as the goalkeeper of Partizan and the Red-Black National Team.

With Partizan would come successive successes starting from 1957 until 1965, where Partizan would win 6 out of the next 7 championships.

The one of 1958 seemed to be the most modest, but also among the most valuable because this time it was not won by defeating only one Dinamo, but also by defeating two other unpredictable rivals: 17 Nëntori of Panajot Panos and Skender Merje (Halili), but especially Besa of Shefqet Topi, Hasan Gërmani, Qemal Gavardari and Mit Dimroçi, so for a moment it seemed like a quadruple victory.

Partizan at that time was “golden” with prominent players such as Deliallisi, Fagu, Ndini, G. Merja, Kraja, Resmja and Deda, who were part of the 11th National Team of the time that had just played a match against the German Democratic Republic (1-1).

With the national team, matches such as the one against Hungary in 1950, where he faced nothing more and nothing less than the great Puskas himself, should be mentioned, as well as against the Czech Republic, Romania, and Denmark, where he was also the team captain.

In 1958, Partizan would participate in the Spartakiad of the armies of friendly countries of the East, where they performed one of the most excellent representations for clubs in the history of Albanian football.

That event was only called Spartakiad, but somehow all the champions of the eastern countries that had elite football at that time were gathered.

Twelve countries participated, including the USSR, the GDR, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, China, the Democratic People’s Republic of Vietnam, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Poland, Romania, and the Mongolian People’s Republic.

The results are excellent: first against the Vietnamese team 5-1, then defeating CCA Bucharest 1-0, but losing in the final to CDNA Sofia 0-1 after a “punch” from 16 m, at the moment when our Partizan was playing with 10 players.

It was a tough match, from which Maliqati himself would remember:

“…. 7 minutes before the end Niko Bespalla misses a clear chance, alone in front of the goal. After 5 minutes, when 2 more minutes were needed for the game to end, the famous Bulgarian defender Rakorovi breaks through the defense and scores the only goal I conceded in that tournament”

Maliqati was in the great shape in this tournament, he caught the attention of the German media, who dubbed him the “Black Cat” also because of the completely black uniform that this goalkeeper wore. In this Spartakiad he was declared the best goalkeeper, while Resmja was declared the best for technical interpretation.

The German newspaper “Deutsche Sport Echo” wrote: “Maliqati the best goalkeeper of all the teams… The black cat buried the ball not without risk in his body”.

In addition to this tour, Sulejman Maliqati has held many other tours in the Soviet Union, especially the one in Hanoi.

In 1954, Maliqati defended the goal of Vllaznia against Drozhe of Budapest, a very strong team, this team had defeated our national team twice, 3-0 and 4-0, even though the great Qemal Vogli was in goal.

This match, which was characterized by powerful attacks, especially by the Hungarians, ended 0-0. Maliqati managed to deflect hundreds of balls, excelling with his form so much that at the end of it, the Shkodra fans entered the field, carrying him in their arms from the “Vojo Kushi” stadium to the “Kafja e Madhe”.

Sulejman Maliqati has had very dangerous attacking opponents who were quite a problem when approaching the goal, like the great Pushkas and Masapusti, in the international arena.

He is a record-breaking goalkeeper in those years when our championship could be considered too difficult because it had the rivalry of 5-6 teams, in contrast to the difficult conditions and sports facilities.

Maliqati, in its “worst” championship, has conceded a maximum of 7 goals, and there has even been a championship in which it has managed to concede only one goal from start to finish, and that goal only came from a penalty!!

He himself will speak about the conditions at the time and the facilities where he trained and the history of the gloves that he never used:

“Not for me. At the time I played, there were no gloves and they came out later. Some goalkeepers started using them, but I didn’t. I didn’t like them, because my hands and fingers had no sensitivity. Even when they brought them to me, I didn’t wear them. My fingers are already deformed, but they have touched millions of soccer balls”.

“In every training session I wouldn’t leave without touching the ball with my hands 2000-3000 times. The conditions were bad, we didn’t have any showers. I remember that when the match ended, we would go and wash ourselves at the Lushe mill. There was a pipe there that produced warm water when the mill was working.”

He has managed to pass on the “craft” of goalkeeping quite well to his son Agim Maliqati, the well-known goalkeeper in the 80s of Lokomotiva and then of Vllaznia, whom he has trained himself and educated with the great work that must be done in this sport, to achieve satisfactory results, and undoubtedly his son, Agim Maliqati, also belongs to the distinguished class of Albanian goalkeepers.

Sulejman Maliqati passed away on October 5, 2022!