KF Vllaznia Shkodër

Also written as Vllaznia.

The club

Vllaznia is not AF Elbasani and not Dinamo City. AF Elbasani is a club founded in 2021 in the central Albanian city of Elbasan; Dinamo City is a Tirana club founded in 1950 by the communist-era Interior Ministry and rebranded from Dinamo Tirana in 2023. Vllaznia is a different institution again: it is based in Shkodër in the far north of Albania, and by its own claim to founding date it is far older than either of the other two. KF Vllaznia was established as the Vllaznia Sports Society on 16 February 1919, which is put forward as making it the oldest football club in Albania; the name "vllaznia" is an Albanian word tied to loyalty to one's clan, usually rendered in English as "brotherhood." The club played its first match, against KF Tirana, in October 1920, and was renamed KS Vllaznia in 1958.

The club's nicknames are Kuqeblutë (Red-Blue, from the home colours) and Djepi i Futbollit Shqiptar, the Cradle of Albanian Football. The home ground is the Loro Boriçi Stadium in Shkodër, in use since 1952 and named after a former Vllaznia captain and Albania international. It was reconstructed from May 2015 at a cost of around 17 million euros and now holds 16,000, making it the second-largest stadium in Albania behind the Qemal Stafa Stadium in Tirana. Vllaznia have competed in every edition of the Kategoria Superiore since 1930 with only three exceptions: 1956-57 and 1961-62, and again in 2018-19 after a 2018 relegation, from which they came straight back up as second-division champions in 2019. The head coach for 2026-27 is the Albanian Edi Martini; the club captain is Bekim Balaj, also the top scorer in the 2025-26 season with 14 goals. The club president is Alban Xhaferi.

Recent seasons

Vllaznia's biggest rival is KF Tirana, in what is described as Albania's oldest derby, the two clubs being the first pair to exist in the country; there is also a long-standing north-south rivalry with Flamurtari Vlorë and regional derbies against Laçi and Kukësi in the north. In the 2025-26 Kategoria Superiore, Vllaznia topped the ten-team regular-season table with 63 points from 36 matches, 18 wins, 9 draws and 9 defeats, 42 goals for and 27 against, ahead of AF Elbasani in second on 62 and Egnatia in third on 57. The Albanian top flight then runs a final-four championship round among the top four regular-season finishers, with points from the regular season halved and rounded down; in that round Vllaznia won none of their three matches, scoring twice and conceding six, and finished third behind Egnatia, who were confirmed champions, and AF Elbasani in second, with Dinamo City fourth. Vllaznia's own 2026-27 campaign has started with a 2-2 draw in their opening league fixture on 23 August 2026, leaving them third in the early table with one point from one match played.

Honours and landmarks

Vllaznia have won the Albanian championship ten times, including an unofficial wartime title in 1940, with officially recognised titles in 1945, 1946, 1971-72, 1973-74, 1977-78, 1982-83, 1991-92, 1997-98 and 2000-01. They have won the Albanian Cup eight times, in 1964-65, 1971-72, 1978-79, 1980-81, 1986-87, 2007-08, 2020-21 and 2021-22, and the Albanian Supercup twice, in 1998 and 2001. They also won the Albanian second division championship in 1957 and 1962, the two seasons that immediately followed their relegations from the top flight in those eras. Across the all-time Kategoria Superiore table, Vllaznia rank third among Albanian clubs with 987 wins, 529 draws and 680 losses from 2,174 matches, and are credited with 13 runner-up finishes and 15 third-place finishes on top of the ten titles.

Notable scorelines

The club's biggest recorded home league win is 8-0 against Flamurtari Vlorë on 6 February 1999, and the biggest recorded away win is 7-1 at KF Laçi on 18 December 2004. The heaviest home defeat on record is 1-5 to Skënderbeu on 11 May 2024, and the heaviest away defeat is 5-1 at KF Tirana on 28 February 2004. In European competition, Vllaznia's biggest home win is 3-0 against Široki Brijeg of Bosnia and Herzegovina on 15 July 2021, and their biggest away win is 4-0 at Sliema Wanderers of Malta on 30 September 1987. Their heaviest European defeats both came against Trabzonspor of Turkey in July 2007, a 4-0 home loss on 14 July and a 6-0 away loss on 8 July, and they also lost 0-4 at home to Valur of Iceland on 18 July 2024.

European record

Vllaznia reached the European Cup in 1978-79, beating Austria Wien 2-0 at home before losing 1-4 away, going out 2-4 on aggregate. In the 1987-88 Cup Winners' Cup they beat Sliema Wanderers of Malta 2-0 and then 4-0, before losing both legs 0-1 to RoPS of Finland. In the 2001-02 Champions League qualifying they beat KR Reykjavik of Iceland 1-0 and 2-1 before losing 1-4 and 0-2 to Galatasaray of Turkey. In the 2008-09 UEFA Cup they drew 0-0 and won 2-1 against Koper of Slovenia before being eliminated 0-3 and 0-5 by Napoli of Italy. Details of Vllaznia's other individual European ties beyond these campaigns were not established from the sources read here.

Head-to-head notes

Detailed head-to-head league records between Vllaznia and either AF Elbasani or Dinamo City were not established from the sources read here, beyond their shared presence in the 2025-26 Kategoria Superiore table and final-four round: Vllaznia finished above Dinamo City and below AF Elbasani in that final-four standing, having beaten neither in the round-robin phase. The three clubs are geographically and institutionally distinct: Vllaznia from Shkodër in the north, AF Elbasani from Elbasan in central Albania and founded only in 2021, and Dinamo City from Tirana, an Interior Ministry creation from 1950 that spent recent seasons playing home fixtures away from Tirana at the Elbasan Arena because its own Selman Stërmasi Stadium does not meet UEFA requirements. Vllaznia, by contrast, play their own home fixtures and their announced 2026-27 European ties at their own Loro Boriçi Stadium in Shkodër.

Right now (2026/27)

Edi Martini is the head coach for 2026-27, with Bekim Balaj as captain. Vllaznia entered the 2026-27 UEFA Conference League in the first qualifying round of the main path, seeded, and were drawn against Malisheva of Kosovo. Vllaznia won the home leg 2-1 at the Loro Boriçi Stadium in Shkodër on 9 July 2026, Klinti Qato scoring in the 37th minute and Emiljano Musta in the 56th, with Laurent Xhylani replying for Malisheva in the 4th minute; the referee was Giorgi Avazashvili of Georgia and the attendance was 2,500. The away leg in Kosovo on 15 July 2026, played at the Kampi Nacional in Hajvalia in front of 837 people and refereed by Tom Owen of Wales, went to Malisheva 5-0, with two goals from Kreshnik Uka and one each from Xhemal Ibishi, Arlind Veliu and Krenar Dulaj. Malisheva went through 6-2 on aggregate and Vllaznia's European campaign for the season ended in the first qualifying round.

Domestically, Vllaznia opened the 2026-27 Kategoria Superiore with a 2-2 draw, leaving them third in the early table on one point from one match. Full details of that fixture, including opponent and scorers, along with the club's summer transfer business and any further 2026-27 league results, were not established from the sources read here.

Sources

Researched and written for not4quarters. Where a fact could not be established from the sources read, this page says so rather than guessing.