Ballkani

The ground in Suhareka holds around 3,000 people. Theranda City Stadium — the town's own municipal ground — is where Ballkani have played, including nights when the visitors' badge came from a different tier of European football altogether.

The club that plays there was founded on 30 November 1947. It began life as Rinia. The nickname, Xhebrailat — the Gabriels — travelled with them.

What changed the club was compressed into three seasons. Ballkani won the Kosovo Superleague in 2022, again in 2023, and again in 2024. In 2024 they added the Kosovo Cup, and the Supercup came in 2022 and 2024. Before that run, none of it had happened.

The larger marker sits outside Kosovo. In 2022–23, Ballkani reached the group stage of the UEFA Europa Conference League — the first club from Kosovo to get there — and did it again the following season. That meant a 3,000-seat municipal ground in a small town hosting continental group football, twice, which is not a sentence that had been available to write about any Kosovan club before.

Two group-stage campaigns is where the story currently stops. Ballkani have not gone past that phase, and the step above the Conference League — a Europa League or Champions League group — has not been reached. Domestically the trophies have come in a cluster rather than a habit: three league titles, one cup, two supercups, all inside three years, with nothing before them to lean on. Whether the ground in Suhareka sees another European autumn is still open.