Macedonia has constantly faced denial on all grounds throughout history up to the present day, starting from the neighbors and up to the great powers, each from their own interest. Some deny our country, others our nation, our language, and so on. That is why it is more than pleasant when a member of our diaspora, who originates from the part that is subjected to assimilation on a daily basis by various centers of influence, makes a statement that unequivocally confirms where he belong.

photo by Luxemburger Wort: Sinani playing for Luxembourg

The footballer of the German Bundesliga club St. Pauli and Luxembourg international, Danel Sinani, in an interview to the German newspaper Bild, says:

“I was born in the former Yugoslavia, from my parents I first learned Macedonian, and then Serbian. I lived in Belgrade for five years. Then we moved to Luxembourg.”

Danel’s parents are from Dragaš in Gora, then Kosovo and Metohija, and he is an ethnic Macedonian-Gorani. In his career so far, Sinani has played for Racing Union Luxembourg, F91 Dudelange, Waasland-Beveren, Huddersfield Town, Norwich City, Wigan Athletic, St. Pauli.

He has played for all youth national teams of Luxembourg, while for the senior team since 2017 he has made 71 appearances and scored 15 goals. Unfortunately, he never had the opportunity to play for Macedonia. Kosovo approached Sinani about representing them internationally, but he refused the meeting to discuss the subject.

Sinani scored the winning goal for Luxembourg in the recent friendly away to albania in Tirana, and because his name sound Albanian he brought the attention of the local media. However, they up not happy by his thoughts.

“In various interviews, he has made it clear that he has had no sports connections with Albania or Kosovo and that he links his identity to the Gorani community.” – writes Albainian web site Fakti Ditor.

Gora is a geographical region in Southern Kosovo, Northeastern Albania and Northern Macedonia primarily inhabited by Macedonian-Gorani people. Due to geopolitical circumstances, some of the local people have over time also self declared themselves as Gorani, Albanians, Bosniaks, Serbs, Turks, Bulgarians and even Muslims by ethnicity.

Many footballers who have played in the past and footballers who are currently playing for various European countries come from this region. These are some of them:

Eljif Elmas, Macedonia;
Fahrudin Jusufi, SFR Yugoslavia – winner of the gold medal at the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome, runner-up at 1960 EURO in France, 4th place at the 1962 World Cup in Chile;
Igor Duljaj, FR Yugoslavia / Serbia and Montenegro / Serbia
Miralem Sulejmani and Bojan Neziri, Serbia;
Almen Abdi, Switzerland;
Danel Sinani and Dejvid Sinani, Luxembourg;
Deni Hočko, Montenegro;
Veldin Hodža, Croatia (youth teams) / Kosovo;
Rijad Sadiku, Bosnia-Herzegovina (youth teams);
Zeli Ismail, England (youth teams).