Hamdi Salihi (born 19 January 1984 in Shkodër, Albania) nicknamed The Bomber is an Albanian football player. He plays as a striker for Albania national football team and for Rapid Wien of Austria at club level.
KS Vllaznia Shkodër
Salihi started his footballing career at his home town club
KS Vllaznia Shkodër. In the 2002–2003 Salihi feature for the club only two times in his first professional year. In 2003–2004 Salihi was given a chance to show his qualities as a young player which he managed to score 14 goals in 33 games. In his third season with the club he played just half of the season of 2004–2005 which he managed to score 16 goals in only 20 matches and then after an impressive season in
Albania's top division he moved to
Greece.
Panionios
In 2004, Salihi moved to
Panionios in in the top division of
Greece. The young
Albanian striker only managed to play in 6 games, mostly coming on as a substitute in the last few minutes. After the season was over he decided to go back to his country to play for
KF Tirana.
KF Tirana
Salihi moved back to Albania and played for
KF Tirana starting from the 2005–2006 season. He had a very successful season winning the National Cup and the golden boot as the highest scorer of the Albanian Superliga. He continued with KS Tirana for another half season, again being the highest scorer in the league before he left to play in the
Austrian Bundesliga. In his time with
KF Tirana Salihi became known all over the world for his goalscoring abilities. He finished 8th in The
IFFHS World's best Top Division Goal Scorer 2006. In one season with
KF Tirana he managed to score 29 goals in 33 games altogether. Also Salihi play half of the season in 2006–2007 right before getting solded to
SV Ried from
KF Tirana which he managed to score 13 goals in 17 games.
SV Ried
In the 2007 January
transfer window Salihi joined
SV Ried of the
Austrian Bundesliga. He completed his first half season at
SV Ried with 6 goals, helping his club to become vice-champions of the
Austrian Football Bundesliga. Salihi also scored 2 goals on the first round
Uefa Cup qualifiers against Neftchi, one of which was scored on the second leg match in the 85th minute. Until the 85th minute the score was 2–0 for
Neftchi and if the score was kept they were going to qualify for the second round on the away goals rule 3–3 as SV Ried had won 3–1 at home. Thanks to Salihi's goal the overall score was 4–3 and SV Ried safely went through to the next round.
In the 2007–08 season, Salihi enjoyed a decent season at the club, becoming the league's joint 4th top scorer along with Carsten Jancker of SV Mattersburg with 12 league goals. Despite this, SV Ried only finished 7th out of 10 in the league. In the 2008–09 season Salihi improved himself to 14 league goals at Ried, scoring one fourth of his team's goals. Ried placed fifth at the end of the season. On the 2009–2010 season Salihi play 6 games which he score twist for his club but couple weeks later he was solded to Rapid Wien.
Rapid Wien
On 31 August 2009 Salihi signed with Austrian giants
SK Rapid Wien on a 3 years contract. On his first match with
Rapid Salihi entered into the match in second half as a substitute and scored on the 83rd minute his first goal with
Rapid. The goal drew the score with
Salzburg, 2–2, and saved
Rapid from a loss.
At the end of the season Salihi scored 17 goals, 2 of which were from the previous club SV Ried making him the 5th leading goalscorer behind two of his team mates Steffen Hofmann, who was in first, and Nikica Jelavić who was tied in third. At the end of the season Rapid Wien was in third place three points behind champions Red Bull Salzburg and two points behind Austria Wien. Rapid Wien qualified for the 2010–11 UEFA Europa League Second qualifying round.
Salihi score his first goal of 2010–2011 season on August, 22, 2010 against SV Mattersburg in 2 – 0 win. On 25 September 2010 he score 2 goals and helped his team to win 3 – 2 aganst Kapfenberger SV. Salihi scored one goal for Rapid Vienna on November, 4, 2010 aginast CSKA Sofia in UEFA Europa League. On 11 November 2010, Salihi find the net 2 times against TSV Hartberg in Austrian Cup. The Bomber on 20 November 2010 against LASK Linz scored four goals in a 5 – 0 victory. One week later Salihi added one more goal against the previous champions Austria Vienna in a 1–0 win. His 9th, 10th goal of the season came against Innsbruck on 11 December 2010.
National team
Salihi scored his first goal for the Albanian National team in a 3–0 win over Malta on 23 August 2007. He was sent in the game on the 22nd minute replacing
Erjon Bogdani. Only after 12 minutes played,
The Bomber took advantage of a mistake made by the Maltese goalie and scored. Salihi scored the important 3–2 goal in a friendly for Albania B against AC Milan, The thriller match ended 3–3.
The second international goal of Salihi came in Sweden, when he scored for Albania in the last match of the FIFA 2010 World Cup Qualifiers. Albania lost 4–1. Neither Sweden nor Albania qualified for the FIFA 2010 World Cup.
Salihi has had overall 14 appearances with the National team, most of them as a substitute. Many Albanian sports fans believe that the player has been under utilized and has rarely given the chance to show off his goaltender instincts.
Career stats
Updated to games played 20 September 2010.
{| class="wikitable"
|-----
! Season
! Club
! Country
! Competition
! Matches
! Goals
|-----
| 2002–03 || Vllaznia Shkodër || || Albanian Superliga || 2 || 0
|-----
| 2003–04 || Vllaznia Shkodër || || Albanian Superliga || 33 || 14
|-----
| 2004 || Vllaznia Shkodër || || Albanian Superliga || 20 || 16
|-----
| 2005 || Panionios || || Super League Greece || 6 || 0
|-----
| 2005–06 || KF Tirana || || Albanian Superliga || 35 || 29
|-----
| 2006 || KF Tirana || || Albanian Superliga || 17 || 13
|-----
| 2007 || SV Ried || || Austrian Bundesliga || 15 || 6
|-----
| 2007–08 || SV Ried || || Austrian Bundesliga || 33 || 12
|-----
| 2008–09 || SV Ried || || Austrian Bundesliga || 28 || 14
|-----
| 2009 || SV Ried || || Austrian Bundesliga || 6 || 2
|-----
| 2009–10 || SK Rapid Wien || || Austrian Bundesliga ||23 || 15
|-----
| 2010–11 || SK Rapid Wien || || Austrian Bundesliga ||18 || 10
|-----
| || || || Total || 236 || 131
|}
Career statistics
Honours
Clubs
Winner of the Albanian Superliga 2006–07 with KF Tirana
Winner of the Albanian Cup 2005–2006 with KF Tirana
Winner of the Albanian Supercup 2005 with KF Tirana
Winner of the Albanian Supercup 2006 with KF Tirana
Individual
Top scorer of Albania National League 2005–2006 with 29 goals
International goals
Updated to games played November 17, 2010.
External links
Hamdi Salihi Statistics UEFA.com
Football Database
National Football Teams Data
References
Category:1984 births
Category:Living people
Category:Albanian footballers
Category:Albania international footballers
Category:Albanian expatriate footballers
Category:Albanian Muslims
Category:Panionios G.S.S. players
Category:SV Ried players
Category:Austrian Football Bundesliga players
Category:Superleague Greece players
Category:Expatriate footballers in Greece
Category:Expatriate footballers in Austria
Category:People from Shkodër
