Albanian: Fatos Besim Beqiraj; born 5 May 1988) is a Montenegrin footballer of Albanian ethnicity[a] who plays for Dinamo Zagreb and the Montenegro national football team.
Club career
Budućnost Podgorica
He began his career in Peć with the local club KF Shqiponja at 17 years of age before joining their city rivals KF Besa in July 2007.[1] After spending the first half of the 2007–08 season with Besa his good performances in the Kosovar Superliga attracted attention from several clubs in the region, and in January 2008 he moved to the Montenegrin side FK Budućnost Podgorica.
He immediately established himself as a first team regular at Budućnost, scoring 9 goals in 15 appearances in the second half of the 2007–08 season,[2] helping the club win the Montenegrin championship title and finish runners-up in the 2007–08 Montenegrin Cup. In the following two seasons Bećiraj scored 28 league goals in 62 matches for the club, becoming league top scorer in the 2008–09 season with 18 goals scored.
Dinamo Zagreb
It was announced on 30 August 2010 that Beqiraj signed for Croatian powerhouse Dinamo Zagreb. Beqiraj played very well in his debut season with Dinamo and became regularly called up to the Montenegro national team. He played in 22 league matches and scored 8 goals, most notably a beautiful goal against NK Rijeka and a fine header against Hajduk Split.
Beqiraj struggled to find his goalscoring form at the beginning of the 2011–12 season, finally scoring after eight matches without a goal, netting the fifth goal in a 5–0 win against NK Karlovac. He then scored the last goal in a 4–1 win against Malmö FF in the Champions League Play-off. Beqiraj then continued his goalscoring form in domestic competition, scoring against NK Varaždin, NK Istra, NK Zadar, NK Šibenik and RNK Split.
On 22 November 2011, Bećiraj scored Dinamo's first goal in the 2011-12 Champions League, netting a header in Dinamo's 6-2 away loss to Real Madrid at the Santiago Bernabéu.
Beqiraj was the first choice striker throughout the 2011-12 season and became top scorer of the Prva HNL with 15 goals in 28 appearances, becoming the first foreign player to accomplish that feat.
International career
Beqiraj was first called up for the Montenegro U21 by coach Dušan Vlaisavljević in 2009, winning his first cap in a 2011 European Under-21 Championship qualifier against Kazakhstan U21 on 7 June 2009. He went on to earn five caps for the U21 team before receiving his first call-up for the senior team in March 2009, for a 2010 World Cup qualifier against Italy. He had his international debut in the match, coming on as a substitute for Radomir Đalović in the 70th minute. He scored his first goal for Montenegro on 17 November 2010 in a friendly match against Azerbaijan.
Beqiraj said in an interview that should the Kosovo national football team be allowed to play international events, he would consider leaving the Montenegro team to play for Kosovo.
Dinamo Boss: Well i didn't expect that... I think its because he think's i am not going to put him in first team. We are friend's... i would give him solid salary, car, whatever he wants. So i don't know exactly why his manager declined but i do not want going to ask him again.
10' Duje Čop
Fatos Beciraj
