Flamurtari

Sokol Kushta did what none of Flamurtari's other strikers had done before or since: on a night in the last months of 1987, he put the ball past Barcelona's goalkeeper in the Round of 16 of the UEFA Cup, and Vlorë won 1–0. Barcelona settled the tie in the return leg, 4–1, but the home result stayed attached to Kushta's name, and that season he finished 30th in the Ballon d'Or voting, a distinction no Albanian footballer had reached before him. He played in what is still called the club's golden generation, alongside goalkeeper Anesti Arapi and midfielder Alfred Zijai.

The club that produced them had already changed its name three times by then. It started in 1923 as the Vlorë Sports Society, became Ismail Qemali in 1935, and spent the years from 1951 to 1958 as Puna Vlorë, "Work Vlorë," before the communist authorities let it settle back into Flamurtari, the standard-bearers, a name it has kept since. The ground, Stadiumi Flamurtari, holds 9,500, and the team plays in red and black, known locally as Kuq e Zinjtë and, further along the coast, as the Red and Black Fleet.

Flamurtari has won the Albanian Superliga only once, in 1990–91, but has taken the Albanian Cup four times, most recently in 2018 against Skënderbeu Korçë, and the Supercup twice. Matches against Vllaznia Shkodër carry the sharpest edge of any fixture on the calendar; games against Teuta, the other club from the coast, are known simply as the Coastal Derby.

The recent record has been unsteady: relegation to the third tier in 2021, a return to the top flight, and a second relegation in 2025 — two drops in four seasons.