Gerdan Shaqiri's long story of a difficult life had no money for even training

Shaqiri is part of Switzerland's team at the Russia World Championship. He shows that the road here has not been easy.

“Our house had no central warming. Just a big chimney. It was a very old house on a farm in Basel, it was what it was. Little did I think of her home and her conditions, and I was warming myself up as a fool. My older brother was the one most complaining about the cold, since his room was upstairs, away from the chimney. He was forced to cover himself with perhaps five blankets during wintertime.

My family left Kosovo before the war started, I was four years old, they tried to create a new life in Switzerland with me and my two brothers. It wasn't easy. My dad didn't know German, so he started cleaning dishes in a restaurant. Then he started working on road construction. My mother worked as a cleaning lady in the city office. (I helped them with the electric suction, and the brothers cleaned the windows.)

Switzerland is an expensive place for all, but it was much harder for my parents because they sent money to our family members who were in Kosovo. At first we traveled to Kosovo once a year. My mother always tells me, “on the plane, you were always a bad guy!

Always trying to jump on the chair and touch people in their heads! You never stopped!

When the war started, it was impossible to go to our homeland, and things were difficult for other family members who were stuck there. My uncle's house was burned to the ground. My father sent as much money as he could, so we didn't have the money to spend extra time growing up, sharing anything on my birthday.

A funny story... Ronaldo was my idol. The original one. The way he played it was a spell for me. During World Cup final, 1998, when he got hurt and Brazil lost to France, I cried and just cried because I was very upset about him. My seventeenth birthday was three months after the World, and I kept begging my mother for three months straight, the only thing I want for my birthday is Ronaldo's yellow fan. Please buy me that fan”.

My birthday came, and my mom had only one box for me. I opened it, and it was Ronaldo's yellow lantern. It was one of those fake fans they bought at the market. I don't even know if there was any emblems on it. It was just a yellow fan, number nine.

My parents didn't have money to buy my original fan, it didn't stop me. It was the happiest day of my life. I wore it for a straight 10 days, and I also had short, yellow pants.

As far as I know I was the only immigrant in my school, and I don't think Swiss children understood why I was so passionate about soccer. In Switzerland, football is just a sport. It's not life as it is in other countries.

I remember, four years later, when Ronaldo was in the 2002 World with that triangle-like hairstyle, I went to the barber and said, “gave me Ronaldos”.

But I had curly hair back then, they didn't look too good. When I went to school all the kids look at me in amazement, saying, what happened to this guy? What the hell did he do?

I didn't mind. I was just myself. My school was in the good part of town, and my house was only five minutes away from walking from the really bad part of town, and there was good football.

My mother begged me not to go there, but I went there every day after school to play. I know people think Switzerland is all good, and most of it is, but in this park, it was crazy. The teams there were like the United States.

There were Turks, Africans, Serbs, Albanians, everything. And it wasn't just football there, everyone stood there in vain, there were people singing German hip-hop, there were kids singing rap music, there were girls walking in the middle of the field, even though the game was going on.

Football there was real. You could see guys eating fists all the time. I never got punched because I kept my mouth shut, always. My time in that park helped me a lot, since I was a little boy, I learned how to play with boys far older than I did who didn't play jokes.

When I was 14, I was playing for the FC Basel Youth Team, and we had the opportunity to play Nike Cup in Prague. The problem was that I had to miss school, and when I asked the teacher, he said no. In Switzerland, teachers are very serious about schoolwork. I thought, shit, okay, now I have to pretend I'm sick.

I told my mother to write a letter to the school in which she writes that I am sick or something, and then I went to Prague for the shift. I played very, very well, and it was the first time I saw other kids watching me say, look, he's the kid from Basel. It's him. It was a very good feeling.

We went home and then I went to school on Monday, still pretending I was sick, you know? Then my teacher told me, “Jerdan, come here. Come on, come on, come on”

He looked at me and then he pulled the paper out of his desk. He put his finger on the news and he said, " “Oh, you were sick? On the front page of the newspaper, there was a picture of me smiling, carrying the Best Player of the Tour trophy.

I just looked at the teacher in the eye and put my hands up, so, well... fuck! I began to draw attention to that tour, but money was still a problem for my family because my two brothers also played for Basel. Whenever we had to go on a tour, we had to pay the most expensive price since we were the three brothers. When I was 16, we had to pay for a training camp in one country in Spain, and the price was about 700 Swiss francs. Dad came to us and said, "Look, it's impossible. We can't pay for this”

So my brothers and I began working on different jobs to provide money. We worked in our neighborhood for what was needed, and eventually we raised the money by providing the trip to Spain. My fear was not going to Spain, I was so afraid that my teammates will find out that we couldn't find the money.

You know what it's like when other kids make fun of you, especially when you're 16 or 17. After the training, all the children went to buy food at the store, my brothers and I never had any money, so we had to lie and find reasons to go home immediately. That made me hungry in another way. I was hungry to play against the best, always.

A year later, when I was 17, I received a call to join Basel's first team. I got in the last 20 minutes of the fight, and I thought I was playing good. I went to practice the next day, and our young coach said, “what the hell was that? What did you think you were doing?

I said, “What are you talking about? He said, “I talked to the coach. He told me that all you did was drive. Now you're back on the second team. That's all”. I was shocked. I thought I ended up here.

Two weeks later, they fired the coach. A new coach came in. He called me to be part of the first team, and I never looked back again. It was funny because he put me on the left side of the defense, and you know I love the attack and the launching of the attacks, so the defenders were always screaming, “You have to go back! Turn around! ”

Hahaha! What can I say? Finally, it worked out very well for me because newspapers started writing about an opportunity for me to be part of the World 2010. I didn't know what to think. It was crazy. When I joined the team, it was a very emotional moment. I went straight to my mother and father, they were very happy.

It happened so fast. One day I was a 16-year-old, taking care of people's gardens so that I could get the money for a ticket to Spain, and then I got 18, riding on a plane to go to the South African World.

I remember the game against Spain, looking at Iniestan in front of me and thinking, Wow, it's the Inista I've seen on television, he's here. But something I will always remember is the first day we went to the hotel and they had an armed guard in front of each door of the room. Our personal guardian protecting us. I thought this was the most interesting thing in the world, because a year ago I was running from the park late at night, now I have my personal armed guard?

For my parents, it was a moment of pride that I took part in the world because they came to Switzerland with nothing and they worked hard to live a good life for their children. I think the media misunderstand my feelings for Switzerland. I feel like I have two houses. It's that simple. Switzerland gave my family everything, and I try to give everything for the National. But every time I go to Kosovo, I immediately experience the feeling of home, too. It's not logical. It's just a feeling I have inside me.

In 2012, when we played against Albania, I put the flags of Switzerland, Albania and Kosovo on my shoes, and some of the Swiss media said some negative things. I was criticized for this. The best thing about Switzerland is that this country has been very hospitable to the people who came from the war looking for a better life.

Switzerland has lakes and mountains of all this. But Switzerland also has the park in which I played with the Turks, Serbs, Albanians, Africans, girls and German rappers. Switzerland is for everyone.

When I enter the world's fields in Russia, I will have the flags of Switzerland and Kosovo on my shoes. Not for something political. But because these flags tell the story of my life. Don't worry, the Swiss flag is on my right foot”.