In the summer of 2021, Mallorca was celebrating wildly – for the first time in four years, the local club rose from the Segunda to Example. However, a hangover soon set in: in the 2021/22 season, Mallorca rarely scored (36 goals – third from the end), lost very often (19 losses – second from the end) and almost flew out. A return to the Segunda would certainly have happened, but the Kosovar striker Vedat Muriqui turned on. He came on loan in the middle of the season and dragged on, scoring some important goals.

This season the carnival continued. 28-year-old Mouriki is one of the top scorers in La Liga and the main star of Mallorca. It’s time to get to know each other.

Murika’s childhood is hell. Was at the epicenter of the conflict between Kosovo and Albania

Muriqui was born in Prizren to Kosovo Albanian parents. Vedat was not lucky – in early childhood he found a very difficult period in the history of his country. In February 1998 (Vedat was three years old), a military conflict began in Kosovo.

“At that time I was four or five years old,” Mouriki recalled in an interview. “Serb soldiers went from house to house, took the men away, tortured and killed them. They also broke into our house, but did not kill anyone – they ordered us to leave. We went to Albania. There were 50 or 55 people with us. We settled in the same house. For the first two days we had to sleep on bottles in the basement.

There was almost no money and food, we were saved by supplies from NATO – but they were also limited. Two liters of milk daily, and that’s for 50 people. In the morning, my mother gave us onions and bread. Lunch is onions and bread. I used to hear my mother crying in despair.”

The Murika family stayed in Albania for about two months. When events resolved, they returned home. “The house stood still,” Vedat recalled. “Just a little messed up.”

To help the family, Vedat started working early. Already at the age of 8 he got a job as a waiter in a cafe. In parallel, he began to train at the school of the Liria club. Conditions in post-war Kosovo were not the best – dirt fields, no locker rooms. But Muriki himself believes that this only hardened him.“The Balkan players are different from the rest,” Vedat said. “Under such conditions, we became stubborn. We know how to achieve goals.”Muriqui was definitely ironclad – he quickly climbed the Liria structure and at 19 moved to the Albanian league (it is much stronger than in Kosovo).