Premiership New Boys: Lorik Cana

Posted by Trevor Cassidy in Featured Articles, Players, Premiership, Premiership New Boys on September 9th, 2009 | no responses

A peruse through the YouTube archives confirms that Sunderland have acquired themselves the Roy Keane of the Balkans – a tough-tackling, take-no-prisoners central midfielder who might consume most Premiership footballers for tea. Good for Sunderland. Because, if as many predict, the Black Cats are to be this season’s surprise package, then the club will certainly need their new captain and Albanian hard man to be firing on all cylinders.

Age: 26

Club: Sunderland (by way of Marseille for a cool £5million)

Upside: Cana is big and strong and will boss play in the middle of the park. Perhaps the best demonstration of his usefulness came during Albania’s recent World Cup qualifiers against Portugal, when he was assigned to neutralize Cristiano Ronaldo. In both matches the wily Portuguese winger barely had an impact – even with Albania playing a man down for some 60 minutes of the first encounter.

Downside: Cana’s aggressiveness and tough tackling can’t hide his suspect first touch and poor passing percentage. And even though his disciplinary record has been excellent (he only had one red card in the previous five seasons), it remains to be seen how the Premiership’s referees will take to his uncompromising style of play. In fact, he’s already picked up two yellow cards in his first four games.

Pedigree: Lorik’s father, Agim, was one of the most celebrated Yugoslav players during the 1980s. To hone his son’s hardiness, Agim forced a young Lorik to play football on a field of broken glass with a bloody goat’s head wrapped in an undershirt. (Ok, maybe not.)

International Career: Despite also being eligible to play for both Switzerland and France, Cana chose Albania and has never looked back.