The Albanian Football Federation wants to thank all the public opinion, avid fans inside and outside of Albania, residents of Tirana and Elbasan, the Albanian state, the police and other intelligent authorities, who have supported us during a long and intense period, in our efforts to organize perfectly a delicate match to its specificity and evaluated with a high degree of difficulty.
We thank for the support all those who have written us publicly and privately, associations, organizations and individuals. We felt sorry that we could not have everyone in the stadium, but it would be impossible even if the stadium would hold 7 million seats, because all Albanians wherever they were, wanted to be near the red and black boys for this match.
A special thanks comes also for the Albanian state, which during the entire period stood by and helped us with its structures in a manner that everything would be organized in a perfect way. This made our job easier. National Intelligence Service, the National Guard and other intelligence services cooperated closely with the Albanian Football Federation for the proper function of this entire event and this was evident. No incidents occurred in Elbasan and it deserves the maximum praise. Particularly, long and continuous cooperation with the State Police was efficient. We want to thank the structures of the Ministry of Interior and the State Police, from Directors to those thousands policemen, who for two days, sacrificed performing strenuous service, with commitment and professionalism.
Offering an exceptional support to this great organization, the citizens of Tirana and Elbasan have also provided an extraordinary contribution. They sacrificed due to the constraints of traffic jams of different road axes etc. Their civic behavior, despite the created difficulties, was admirable.
Not by chance, we have left for the end, our wonderful fans and all those Albanians, who supported us and stood beside us during all these preliminary matches. Even today, as in any case they were wonderful in the way they built the stadium choreographies, how they sacrificed without withdrawing even by bad weather. Many have also sacrificed driving over 1,000 kilometers to come from European countries.
We apologize that we did not achieve the result you expected, and for this, we are indebted to you. But this does not make us bow our heads. On the contrary, we should learn from the loss that in the future we should be even stronger and effective. Today we were all together beating as one heart. We are convinced that in the future we will be also. The red and black boys on the field, while the rest, supporting them with one heart that beats in a rhythm with theirs.
We really lost a battle today, but the fight continues and we promise that we will never give up, in any case, ever. However, we won another battle, that of citizenship and demonstrating our best values. Performance, security, citizenship and values generally were those that prevailed over everything else. And that makes us proud.
Once again thanks for your support. We are indebted to all of you for this.
