Amid interest from Serie A rivals, Dritan Dervishi has pledged his commitment to Hellas Verona.
Speaking with Tribalfootball.com, the club’s head of scouting has revealed an opportunity arrived to take charge of Atalanta’s scouting division – but loyalty to Verona and president Maurizio Setti saw him turn the approach down.
“My future will remain with Hellas Verona in the role of head of scouting,” said Dervishi. “I had an offer from Atalanta but Verona is my home.
“I live and work in a fantastic city where the president and the fans respect me and I take this opportunity to thank them.”
Dervishi is among the most well-known and respected Albanian football identities working in Italy. The job with Hellas Verona – for now – is the pinnacle of a career, which has also seen him work as sporting director with Partizani and Kukesi.
“I am a very simple person and I base everything on passion and always being up-to-date on any new information or study that comes out. I started my career in football with Perugia’s youth team. There begins my adventure in football, which I love like a beautiful girl.
“I came from a three-year experience in Serie B as scouting manager. There I was lucky enough to meet the sports director (Sean) Sogliano, who later called me to Hellas Verona in the role of scout for the Balkans.”
Now running the scouting division at Verona, Dervishi rattles off a raft of major names now running around with Serie A’s biggest clubs. The Albanian says while the aim is always to buy low and sell high, a key factor in their recruitment strategy is character. Dervishi argues it’s why Verona have managed to punch well above their weight in recent seasons.
“In my professional life, the word ‘me’ does not exist,” he says, insisting the club’s scouting success stories are always due to a ‘team’ approach.
“I want to say that as a working group we have had the opportunity and luck to discover and produce great profits for the club, this comes with a lot of work organisation and sacrifices of our entire group of three people.
“Players which I can mention as an example would be Juan Iturbe, Amir Rrahmani, Mattia Zaccagni, Mohamed Fares, Marash Kumbulla, Marco Silvestri, Nico Casale, Giovanni Simeone and many others.”
It’s quite a list, with the likes of Lazio, Napoli, Udinese and Roma now benefiting from the expertise of Dervishi and his team.
“We don’t look at the passport when we buy a player,” he adds, “but we look at the technical and physical side. And it is normal that the Albanian players will be looked at more closely because in the end I will always be from that country.”
Indeed, two of Verona’s recent Albanian signings have gone onto bigger things, with Rrahmani now thriving at Napoli and Kumbulla playing for Jose Mourinho at Roma.
Dervishi continues: “Kumbulla still has time ahead, now he has to learn quickly how to be the protagonist at an important club like Roma. As for Rrahmani, I can say with conviction that he is a defender of the European elite, hardworking and a simple boy.”
As for Kumbulla and Rrahmani’s Albanian peers, he adds: “(Kristjan) Asllani and (Nedim) Bajrami I think they are on the right path to become important players. (Armando) Broja is injured and we have to wait to see how he will recover as it is a serious injury.”
Speaking with Dervishi, Albanian football is never far from the conversation and he admits he’s thought long about how the local system can improve.
“We need hours to talk about the problems of Albanian football, but the main issue is the lack of organisation of clubs and the youth sector, and the problem is meritocracy, the division of roles and respect for the figure of the coach and sports director.
“There are many club directors and coaches who are in charge of teams because they are a friend of the president or also sometimes they are chosen due to politics.”
However, Dervishi does see an exciting positive in the appointment of Sylvinho as new national team coach. The Brazilian succeeding Italian veteran Edy Reja earlier this year.
“I want to be correct here. You cannot be the coach of the national team, but selector of the national team, because with three days a month of training, you cannot be called a coach. In my opinion the president and the committee have made the right choice about appointing Sylvinho.
“Reja was in the winter of his career and did not bring anything new, but he brought some calm after (Christian) Panucci’s time, which had placed the national team under stress and created problems.”
For the moment, Dervishi will maintain his watching brief from afar – yet still fly the flag of Albanian football inside the Italian game. He won’t admit himself, but given the success of his scouting and recruitment at Verona, there’s few Albanians making as big an impact in football currently than Dritan Dervishi.
