Thomas Strakosha

Written by Ermal Kuka for Panorama:

Things have not been easy for Thomas Strakosha, who has lived most of his life under the shadow of his father’s name. Another goalkeeper, Foto Strakosha is a football legend in Albania, and young Thomas decided to follow in his father’s footsteps, although at first Strakosha Senior was opposed to it. “He would say to Thomas: ‘Only fools become goalkeepers,’” recalled Adelina, the Brentford stopper’s mother, in a recent interview. Unfazed, Thomas switched from forward to goalkeeper in Athens’ football academies before moving to Italy to join Lazio’s Under-19s. In 2016, following the departure of his compatriot Etrit Berisha, he debuted for Lazio’s first team under Simone Inzaghi and, soon enough, relegated Italy’s Federico Marchetti to the bench. Though his club career has now taken him to Brentford, where he made his Premier League debut against Manchester United in 2023, he has not had quite the same impact for his country, being second choice to Berisha, far off from the mark of 73 appearances his father registered in the 1990s and early-2000s.