by Rafaela Prifti/
Super Bowl LVI will be underway on Sunday evening. At the end of a sensational season, two teams won their respective conference championships, the Los Angeles Rams and the Cincinnati Bengal. The 2022 Super Bowl marks the first time these teams meet in a championship game. This year the LA Rams are playing a “home” game at the Rams’ home stadium in Inglewood, California..
Whether you follow your favorite NFL team, appreciate the strategic thinking that goes into running the ball down the field, are curious about the pervasive football references or you just like to tune in the Super Bowl for the entertainment and the commercials, there is no denying that the experience is an integral part of the American culture. I took the opportunity to read up on the story of the Los Angeles Rams and it did not disappoint. I came across the Kosovo/Canadian kicker Lirim Hajrullahu, who has great stats and a career-long kick of 56 yards. The AFI noted that throughout his Canadian Football League career which included playing for the Winnipeg Blue Bombers, Toronto Argonauts and Hamilton Tiger-Cats,Hajrullahu has proven his leg strength. He was hitting three-pointers on Canadian soil from nearly 80 yards. Following the 2019 CFL season, Hajrullahu was released by the team to allow him to become a free agent to pursue NFL opportunities. In 2017 he signed a three-year contract with the Los Angeles Rams. In 2020 the Dallas Cowboys added Kosovo-born, former Grey Cup winning CFL kicker to their roster. “In The Spring League, Hajrullahu set a new league record for longest field goal, tied the single-game record for fields goals, and was named the South Division Player of the Week,” writes AFI. Last December, Panthers Wire reported Carolina Panthers signing the Kosovo native kicker to the team.
The honor of being the first Albanian to play in the NFL goes to Kristjan Sokoli. He was picked up by the Seattle Seahawks with the 214th overall pick in the 2015 NFL Draft after an impressive collegiate career at the University of Buffalo (NCAA D1). It has been reported that his father Gjon Sokoli fled Albania in the late 1990s to seek political asylum as civil unrest destabilized the country. Two years later his wife, Gjyste joined him and Kristjan arrived with his younger brother two years after that. In the US, his father worked in maintenance and the family spoke very little English.He said to Advanced Media that from his new home in Bloomfield, NJ, he became a Giants fan and wore a Jeremy Shockey jersey to school. At 26, Sokoli signed with “the depleted Giants two days before the 2017 season finale and stuck around on a non-guaranteed Futures contract…” The Giants were his fourth team since appearing in one game as a rookie in 2015. For four years, Sokoliplayed both sides of the ball. He signed with the XFL team DC Defenders in 2020. In the 2021 Spring League he played for the Alphas and ranked as a top NFL prospect. Last August Potsdam Royals of the German Football League announced the signing of the former NFL defensive end and offensive lineman Kristjan Sokoli from Shkoder, Albania. A Rolling Stone profile on him, describes the journey of the first Albanian-born player to ever make the National Football League. The piece explains how the odds of making the NFL are so astronomically small, that “just about any player who signs a pro contract has a tale to tell. But that doesn’t mean some of those stories aren’t slightly more fantastic than others.”
Super Bowl isthe biggest sporting event in the country. For football fans, it is Christmas and Easter rolled in one. Its origin doesn’t go very far back. Although much younger than Kentucky Derby or the World Series, football has overtaken baseball as the nation’s most popular sport, according to historians. Now part of its history are two Albanians, the newly signed Carolina Panthers kicker Lirim Hajrullahu and former Seattle Seahawks defensive end and offensive lineman Kristjan Sokoli.They have journeyed to their dreams through extreme determination, discipline and hard work. They also honor their place as the firsts of their countries to play in the NFL.
Photo: AP