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Albert Bunjaku
	Bunjaku at practice with 1. FC Nürnberg in 2010
Personal information
Date of birth	29 November 1983 (age 41)
Place of birth	Gjilani, SFR Yugoslavia
Height	1.80 m (5 ft 11 in)
Position(s)	Striker
Youth career
1996–1998	FC Schlieren
1998–2000	Grasshoppers
2000–2003	Young Fellows Juventus
Senior career*
Years	Team
2003–2005	Schaffhausen
2006	SC Paderborn
2006–2009	Rot-Weiß Erfurt
2009–2012	1. FC Nürnberg
2011	1. FC Nürnberg II
2012–2014	1. FC Kaiserslautern
2014–2017	St. Gallen
2017–2018	Erzgebirge Aue
2018–2022	Viktoria Köln
2022	Bonner SC
Total
International career
2004–2006	Switzerland U21
2009–2010	Switzerland
2014–2016	Kosovo
	*Club domestic league appearances and goals

Albert Bunjaku (born 29 November 1983)^[1] is a Kosovar former professional footballer who played as a striker. Having previously represented Switzerland, participating at the 2010 FIFA World Cup, he switched to the newly formed Kosovo national team.

Club career

When Bunjaku was eight years old, he moved with his mother and two brothers to Switzerland, where his father was already working. Bunjaku joined his first club at 13 – unusually late for a future professional. Before starting out with FC Schlieren, he only played football in the schoolyard or on the five-a-side court. At that stage he was also very keen on basketball.

Bunjaku's first step on the professional ladder was at FC Schaffhausen in the Challenge League, Switzerland's second division. The team won promotion to the Super League in 2003–04 and over the course of the next 18 months the young forward made 39 top-flight appearances.

In January 2006, the 23-year-old Bunjaku left Schaffhausen for 2. Bundesliga side SC Paderborn. His first staging post in Germany was destined to last just six months however, as he failed to establish himself under then-coach Jos Luhukay. "At the time I didn't have the feeling he was Bundesliga material", Luhukay says now. As a result, Bunjaku found himself unemployed in the summer of 2006.

Then however, a chance conversation turned Bunjaku's fortunes around. His wife Arieta worked in a boutique in Paderborn frequented by the wife of former Paderborn coach Pavel Dochev. They struck up a conversation and it transpired that Dotchev, now in charge of Rot-Weiß Erfurt, was on the lookout for a striker. No sooner said than done, and Bunjaku was on the move to third-division Erfurt.

He first came to the attention of the wider footballing public when Rot-Weiß Erfurt took on Bayern Munich in a DFB Cup tie on 10 August 2008. Coming on as a second-half substitute in what was Jürgen Klinsmann's competitive debut as Bayern coach, Bunjaku put two goals past the record champions, who eventually squeezed past their lower-league opponents 4–3.

Bunjaku retired in May 2022.^[2]

International career

On 14 November 2009, Bunjaku made his international debut for Switzerland in the 1–0 home loss to Norway in a friendly match after coming on as a substitute for Alexander Frei at half time. He was part of the Swiss squad for the 2010 FIFA World Cup, playing the last 13 minutes of the group match against Chile after coming on for Gelson Fernandes.^[3] Bunjaku played in Kosovo's first FIFA-approved match, against Haiti in a 0–0 home friendly on 5 March 2014.^{[citation needed]} Bunjaku played for Kosovo against Turkey on 21 May 2014 and scored its first international goal.

International goals

As of match played 3 June 2016

Scores and results list Kosovo's goal tally first, score column indicates score after each Bunjaku goal.^[4]

List of international goals scored by Albert Bunjaku
No.	Date	Venue	Cap	Opponent	Score	Result	Competition
1	21 May 2014	Adem Jashari Olympic Stadium, Mitrovica, Kosovo	2	Turkey	1–2	1–6	Friendly
2	25 May 2014	Stade de Genève, Genève, Switzerland	3	Senegal	1–1	1–3
3	3 June 2016	Stadion am Bornheimer Hang, Frankfurt, Germany	4	Faroe Islands	1–0	2–0

References

^ "Hitzfeld: "Bunjaku ist ein Thema"" (in German). Sportal.ch. 5 November 2009. Archived from the original on 13 January 2020. Retrieved 17 June 2012.
^ "Sechsfacher Schweizer Nationalspieler beendet seine lange Karriere" [Six-time Swiss national player ends his long career]. sport.ch (in German). 19 May 2022. Retrieved 10 September 2024.
^ "Chile 1–0 Switzerland". BBC Sport. Retrieved 14 April 2014.
^ Albert Bunjaku at Soccerway