Isnik Alimi ( mk, Исник Алими; born 2 February 1994) is a professional

footballer A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby ...

who plays as a

central midfielder A midfielder is an outfield position in association football. Midfielders may play an exclusively defensive role, breaking up attacks, and are in that case known as defensive midfielders. As central midfielders often go across boundarie ...

for Romanian

Liga I The Liga I (; ''First League''), also spelled as Liga 1, is a Romanian professional league for men's association football clubs. Currently sponsored by betting company Superbet, it is officially known as the SuperLiga. It is the country's top ...

side

Sepsi OSK Sepsi may refer to: *László Sepsi (born 1986), Romanian footballer of Hungarian descent *Sepsi-78, a football club from Seinäjoki, Finland *ACS Sepsi SIC ACS Sepsi SIC Sfântu Gheorghe or commonly Sepsi SIC is a women's basketball professional ...

. A former international for Macedonia U19, he played for the Albania U21 in a pair of friendlies before switching back to play for the North Macedonia national team in 2023.

Club career

Early career - FK Ohrid

Born in

Delogoždi Delogoždi ( mk, Делогожди, sq, Dollogozhdë) is a village in the municipality of Struga, North Macedonia. Geography Delogoždi lies south of Mountain Karaorman in an altitude of 800 meters and the east borders with the villages Dzhepi ...

( sq, Dollogozhda) a village based in

Struga Municipality Municipality of Struga ( mk, Струга, translit=Struga, sq, Strugë) is a municipality in western North Macedonia. ''Struga'' is also the name of the town where the municipal seat is found. Struga Municipality is part of the Southwestern St ...

, Alimi started his youth career aged 7 with Macedonian side Vllaznimi Struga. In 2010, he moved at

FK Ohrid GFK Ohrid Lychnidos ( mk, ГФК Охрид Лихнидос) is a football club from the city of Ohrid in North Macedonia. They play in blue and white jerseys at the SRC Biljanini Izvori football complex and its currently competing in the Mac ...

and in 2011 he was promoted to the first team. On 30 July 2011 Alimi made it his debut with the first team coming as a substitute in place of Aleksandar Dalčeski in second-half's start of the match finished in a 2–0 away loss against Renova for the

Macedonian First League The Macedonian First Football League ( mk, Прва македонска фудбалска лига, ''Prva Мakedonska Fudbalska Liga''), also called Macedonian First League, 1. MFL, and Prva Liga, is the highest professional football competitio ...

championship.

Chievo

In 2013, he moved abroad for the first time joining

Serie A The Serie A (), also called Serie A TIM for national sponsorship with TIM, is a professional league competition for football clubs located at the top of the Italian football league system and the winner is awarded the Scudetto and the Copp ...

side

Chievo Chievo (4,500 inhabitants) is a frazione of Verona located to the west of the city, around from the historic city centre, on the shores of the river Adige. It is best known for its football team, A.C. ChievoVerona, which competes in the second ...

. He stood for a year season with Primavera team. With Primvaera team he won Italian Superleague, he score a goal against Juventus in the first game, also mark the goal against Fiorentina in the semifinals, he helped lead his team to winning the championship because Isnik Alimi was the team captain and key player. He had 21 matches and 10 goals with Primavera team.

Loan to Lumezzane

On 6 August 2014 the

Lega Pro Prima Divisione Lega Pro Prima Divisione was the third highest football league in Italy. It consisted of 33 teams, divided geographically into two divisions of 16 and 17 teams for group A and B respectively. Until 2008 it was known as Serie C1. Before the 1978 ...

side A.C. Lumezzane, announced to have signed Alimi from Chievo on loan mode. He made it his professional debut on 31 August 2014, playing as a starter in the opening match of the

Lega Pro The Serie C () is the third-highest division in the Italian football league system after the Serie B and Serie A. The Lega Italiana Calcio Professionistico (Lega Pro) is the governing body that runs the Serie C. The unification of the Lega Pro ...

against

Pordenone Pordenone (; Venetian and fur, Pordenon) is the main ''comune'' of Pordenone province of northeast Italy in the Friuli Venezia Giulia region. The name comes from Latin ''Portus Naonis'', meaning 'port on the Noncello (Latin ''Naon'') River'. H ...

, finished in the clean 2–0 victory. He finished his first half of the season with Lumezzane with 12 appearances, 8 as a starter and 4 coming on as a substitute. Alimi scored his first goal for Lumezzane in the opening match of the year 2015 against

Novara Novara (, Novarese: ) is the capital city of the province of Novara in the Piedmont region in northwest Italy, to the west of Milan. With 101,916 inhabitants (on 1 January 2021), it is the second most populous city in Piedmont after Turin. It is ...

valid for the 19th game week, played on 6 January and finished in the away 1–3 victory, in where Alimi scored the second goal for 0–2 result in the 45th minute in the end of first half. Alimi concluded the 2014–15 season making in total 27 appearances, from where 21 in the starting line up, scored 2 goals and provided 3 assists.

Atalanta

After 1-year loaned to Lumezzane, Alimi got returned to Chievo, but on 26 June 2015 he signed with the fellow

team

Atalanta B.C. Atalanta Bergamasca Calcio, commonly referred to as Atalanta, is a professional football club based in Bergamo, Lombardy, Italy. The club plays in Serie A, having gained promotion from Serie B in 2010–11. Atalanta was founded in 1907 by Li ...

a 4-years contract.

Loan to Maceratese

In the closing day of the 2015 Summer Transfers Window Alimi got loaned out to the

just promoted side S.S. Maceratese 1922.

Loan to Vicenza

In the 2017 Summer Transfers Window, Alimi was loaned out for the third time to

Vicenza Vicenza ( , ; ) is a city in northeastern Italy. It is in the Veneto region at the northern base of the '' Monte Berico'', where it straddles the Bacchiglione River. Vicenza is approximately west of Venice and east of Milan. Vicenza is a t ...

Loan to Imolese

On 9 August 2019, he joined

Serie C The Serie C () is the third-highest division in the Italian football league system after the Serie B and Serie A. The Lega Italiana Calcio Professionistico (Lega Pro) is the governing body that runs the Serie C. The unification of the Lega ...

club Imolese on a season-long loan.

Loan to Šibenik

On 18 September 2020, Alimi joined

Croatian First Football League The Hrvatska nogometna liga () ( en, Croatian football league), also known as HNL or for sponsorship reasons the SuperSport HNL, is the top Croatian professional football league competition, established in 1992. Previously, it was called Prva H ...

club

HNK Šibenik Hrvatski nogometni klub Šibenik ( en, Croatian Football Club Šibenik), better known as HNK Šibenik or simply Šibenik (), is a Croatian professional football club based in Šibenik. It competes in the Croatian Football League, and plays the ...

on a season-long loan.

Gabala

On 30 July 2021, Alimi signed a one-year contract with Gabala. On 22 May 2022, Gabala announced that Alimi had signed a new one-year contract with the club.

International career

Albania

Having played for Macedonia U19, Alimi was called up highery from

Macedonia national under-21 football team The North Macedonia national under-21 football team is a youth association football national team which represents North Macedonia at this age level and is a feeder team for the North Macedonia national football team. It was formerly known as the ...

for the friendly match against Israel on 13 August 2014, but he refused the invitation as he wanted to play for

Albania Albania ( ; sq, Shqipëri or ), or , also or . officially the Republic of Albania ( sq, Republika e Shqipërisë), is a country in Southeastern Europe. It is located on the Adriatic The Adriatic Sea () is a body of water separating the ...

instead at international level due to his ethnicity. On 24 September 2014 proceedings were begun to give him the Albanian passport to be eligible to play for Albania at an international level. He received his first call up for Albania by

Skënder Gega Skënder Gega (born 14 November 1963) is an Albanian retired football player and current manager. Playing career Club Gega played the majority of his career at Partizani, an Albanian team, whilst also having a two-year stint with German side ...

, the

Albania national under-21 football team The Albania national under-21 football team is the national under-21 football team of Albania and is controlled by the Football Association of Albania. The team competes in the European Under-21 Football Championship, which is held every two y ...

coach for the

Friendly match An exhibition game (also known as a friendly, a scrimmage, a demonstration, a preseason game, a warmup match, or a preparation match, depending at least in part on the sport) is a sporting event whose prize money and impact on the player's or ...

against Romania U21 on 8 October 2014. He made his debut for Albania U21 in the

against Romania U21 on 8 October 2014 by playing as a starter in a 3–1 loss, where he started his team's first attempt to the goal of in the 11th minute by running from the midfield and shooting as soon as he got close to the 16-meters area, a shot which was put by the Romania U21s'

goalkeeper In many team sports which involve scoring goals, the goalkeeper (sometimes termed goaltender, netminder, GK, goalie or keeper) is a designated player charged with directly preventing the opposing team from scoring by blocking or intercepting ...

in the

corner kick A corner kick is the method of restarting play in a game of association football when the ball goes out of play over the goal line, without a goal being scored and having last been touched by a member of the defending team. The kick is taken ...

. Alimi was called up for the first time to participate in a competitive match, the

2017 UEFA European Under-21 Championship qualification The 2017 UEFA European Under-21 Championship qualifying competition was a men's under-21 football competition that determined the 11 teams joining the automatically qualified hosts Poland in the 2017 UEFA European Under-21 Championship tournamen ...

opening match against Liechtenstein U21 on 28 March 2015, however, Alimi failed to play in this match as he was ineligible due to the absence of respective documents.

Career statistics

Club

International

Honours

Gabala *

Azerbaijan Cup The Azerbaijan Cup is a major association football competition in Azerbaijan. In its original form, it started in 1936, when Azerbaijan was a republic of the Soviet Union and it was not disputed by Azerbaijani teams in the Soviet league pyramid. ...

2022–23 The dash is a punctuation mark consisting of a long horizontal line. It is similar in appearance to the hyphen but is longer and sometimes higher from the baseline. The most common versions are the endash , generally longer than the hyphen ...

Sepsi OSK *

Supercupa României The Supercupa României ( en, Romanian Supercup) is a Romanian football championship contested by the winners of the Liga I and the Cupa României. It is usually played at the Arena Națională in Bucharest. The competition started off in 1994 ...

2023 Events Predicted and scheduled events * January 1 ** In the United States, books, films, and other works published in 1927 will enter the public domain, assuming there are no changes made to copyright law. ** Croatia will adopt the eu ...

References

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Alimi, Isnik 1994 births Living people Macedonian people of Albanian descent People from Struga Municipality Albanian men's footballers Macedonian men's footballers Men's association football midfielders Men's association football forwards Macedonian First Football League players Second Football League (Croatia) players Serie C players FK Ohrid players NK Novigrad players AC ChievoVerona players FC Lumezzane players SS Maceratese 1922 players Forlì FC players LR Vicenza players Rimini FC 1912 players Imolese Calcio 1919 players Gabala SC players Azerbaijan Premier League players Croatian Football League players HNK Šibenik players Liga I players Sepsi OSK Sfântu Gheorghe players North Macedonia men's youth international footballers Albania men's under-21 international footballers North Macedonia men's international footballers Albanian expatriate men's footballers Albanian expatriate sportspeople in Italy Albanian expatriate sportspeople in Croatia Macedonian expatriate men's footballers Macedonian expatriate sportspeople in Italy Macedonian expatriate sportspeople in Romania Expatriate men's footballers in Italy Expatriate men's footballers in Romania