Andi Zeqiri may only be 25 years old, but he is one of the leaders of Standard. It must be said that the Swiss has already traveled quite a bit.
In addition to being a surface fox, he is an experienced attacker that the Standard attracted Andi Zeqiri by being loaned. Because in addition to the Swiss championship and this visit to Genk, the native of Lausanne can boast of having played in England (Brighton), Germany (Augsburg) and Italy (Juventus).
He was 18 years old when he joined Turin: “I finished top scorer with Lausanne and we moved up from D2 to D1: I had the opportunity to join Juventus. There were a lot of matches, the championship, the Cup and Europe: I told myself that I would get my chance” he remembers for RTBF.
In contact with the best
If Zeqiri ultimately only played with the Primavera in age categories, he sometimes trained with the first team: “The first day, I didn’t believe it: wearing this legendary jersey, I put few weeks to realize… I learned a lot with players like Buffon, Bonucci, Patrice EvraDani Alvès, Mandzukic, Higuain and even Dybala. And coach Massimiliano Allegri even called me by my first name: he knew me.”
A real life experience: “Off the field, Dani Alvès and Evra were laughing all the time… but as soon as training started, no one was smiling anymore: it was impressive. There was chatter, there was bickering… and then, ‘Suddenly, things changed, and it was competition and duels! There, I understood, that they had not come to laugh but that they lived to win.’
Andi Zeqiri owes a lot to this experience: “In Turin, I lived alone but my father came regularly because Lausanne was not far away. At 18, you are a little shy and you don’t dare talk too much to these big players. We a huge respect for them but they remain human: they end up talking to you and putting you at ease.” From now on, it is up to him to guide the young people at the academy.
