Albania U19

Group 11 of the 2024/25 UEFA Under-19 European Championship qualifiers puts Albania alongside Israel, Denmark and Northern Ireland, a familiar position for a side that has never reached the finals of that tournament since it was created in 2001. That absence has not stopped results coming this year: a win over Malta in March 2024, two victories over Montenegro in October, another over North Macedonia in March 2025, and a 2–2 draw with Bulgaria in June.

The age-group side carries the same identity as the senior team, sharing the nicknames Shqiponjat and Kuq e Zinjtë, and the link between the two runs deeper than a shared crest. Armando Sadiku came through the under-19s in 2009 and went on to wear the senior shirt for more than a decade, scoring Albania's first-ever goal at a European Championship in 2016. Andi Lila made the same journey a few years earlier, moving from the youth ranks in 2005 into a senior career that ran to 2019.

Continuity off the pitch has been rarer than on it. Foto Strakosha ran the side through its first years before Altin Lala took over in 2014 and stayed a decade, a tenure covering most of the team's competitive history until Julian Ahmataj replaced him in 2024.

It was in France, not Albania, that the team's story began: on 10 November 2001, in Capbreton, an 8–1 defeat to the Netherlands.

Among those who passed through the ranks more recently, Armando Dobra has taken his game furthest, moving on from the 2019 under-19 group to Ipswich Town.