Albert Bunjaku

Albert Bunjaku

Bunjaku at practice with 1. FC Nürnberg in 2010.
Personal information
Full name	Albert Bunjaku
Date of birth	(1983-11-29) 29 November 1983 (age 33)
Place of birth	Gjilan, SFR Yugoslavia
Height	1.80 m (5 ft 11 in)
Playing position	Striker
Club information
Current team	FC Erzgebirge Aue
Number	28
Youth career
1996–1998	FC Schlieren
1998–2000	Grasshopper Club Zürich
2000–2003	SC Young Fellows Juventus
Senior career*
Years	Team	Apps	(Gls)
2003–2005	FC Schaffhausen	39	(3)
2006	SC Paderborn 07	10	(1)
2006–2009	FC Rot-Weiß Erfurt	74	(34)
2009–2012	1. FC Nürnberg	55	(14)
2012–2014	1. FC Kaiserslautern	31	(13)
2014–2017	FC St. Gallen	51	(9)
2017–	FC Erzgebirge Aue	1	(0)
National team‡
2004–2006	Switzerland U21	15	(7)
2009–2010	Switzerland	6	(0)
2014–	Kosovo	6	(3)
* Senior club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only and correct as of 12 January 2017. ‡ National team caps and goals correct as of 2 October 2016

Albert Bunjaku (born 29 November 1983) is a Kosovar Albanian football player who plays for Erzgebirge Aue. He previously represented Switzerland (particularly at the 2010 FIFA World Cup), before switching to the newly formed Kosovo national football team for which he is the all-time top scorer.

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.

"I actually always used to play right back in the early days. At some point I was transformed into a striker and that worked out very well. I feel at home up front, I think it's a good position for me and I always try to give it 100 percent", Bunjaku says in summary of his career to date.

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.