Kristjan Asllani has not featured as much as expected for Inter since his transfer, but the Albania international insists he is ‘happy’ with the experience so far and is fired up to face Italy.
The midfielder was signed from Empoli for a total €14.5m in July, but has made only 12 appearances for a total of 312 minutes of football.
Despite the fact he was brought in as an understudy for Marcelo Brozovic, Asllani was generally overlooked during the Croatian’s injury in favour of Hakan Calhanoglu.
“I am a young player, I know there are people like Brozovic and Calhanoglu ahead of me and I can learn a great deal from them. I am happy with the number of minutes I have played so far, it’s not an easy situation,” said the 20-year-old in a press conference.
Asllani was raised in Italy as part of Empoli’s youth academy, but decided to play his international football for Albania.
He is expected to start when the two nations face off in a friendly match in Tirana on Wednesday.
“Of course this will be a special game for me, seeing as I’ve lived in Italy since I was two years old. I have many friends in the Italy squad and hope that we will do well. We talked about this game and I can’t wait.
“It’s going to be a very difficult match, but we will try our best to make our fans happy. Italy are at a very high level, but we have our qualities too and must continue like this.”
Albania are under the guidance of former Napoli and Lazio coach Edy Reja, continuing the Italian connection.
“I think this could be our strongest ever Albania squad, as we have really strong players with great technique, so have a good chance of qualifying for the Euros.”