Malta look for psychological boost

Dusan Fitzel's national team wraps up the pre-season preparations tonight when they face Albania in an international friendly in Tirana (kick-off: 8.45 p.m.).

Fitzel's men arrived in Albania on Sunday after completing a week-long training camp in Semec, Slovakia, and the Malta coach will be hoping to see the benefits of the work done in eastern Europe with a satisfactory result against an Albanian team led by Croat Otto Baric.

A positive showing will be an ideal fillip for the Maltese ahead of a tough Euro 2008 qualifier against Turkey at the National Stadium on September 8.

Joining the national team in Albania were goalkeeper Justin Haber, now playing for Greek club Haidari, and Eintracht Braunschweig striker Andre Schembri.

Both had skipped the training camp in Slovakia to concentrate on their club football.

Malta, 120th in the July FIFA rankings, will be without chief goal-getter Michael Mifsud, of Coventry City, and Macclesfield defender Luke Dimech who stayed in the UK.

Daniel Bogdanovic is still unsettled and without a club so far. He was left out of the reckoning.

Against Albania, Fitzel is likely to use all members in his squad at some part of the game as he looks to fine-tune his tactics ahead of next month's Euro qualifier.

Contacted yesterday, he said: "We wanted to play Albania because we think they adopt the same style of play as Turkey. We watched some DVD footage of their games so this will be an ideal test for us.

"I want to use all the players available if possible as we intend to make six substitutions. There's a doubt on Jamie Pace who picked up a knock during training.

"The training camp was very useful in my opinion. I wanted to try out some new things as the group was together and we also had a good performance in the friendly we played in Slovakia.

"Now, the real test is against Albania as we have to put into practice all that we tried out during training."

This will be the fifth meeting between the two countries who have never played each other in international competition. The Albanians hold the edge with two wins, a draw and one defeat, all friendlies.

Only victory

The only victory over Albania was on August 16, 1995 when goals from Nicky Saliba and Joe Sant Fournier handed the Maltese a 2-1 win in a friendly international at the National Stadium.

The last time Malta and Albania played each other was on November 15, 2000 in Tirana. On that day the Albanians won 1-0.

Albania have come a long way during the past few years. Now ranked 67th in the latest world rankings, the team performed well so far in the Euro 2008 qualifiers.

They are currently fourth in Group G with nine points - two wins, three draws and three defeats. They beat Luxembourg twice, 2-0 and 3-0, and drew against Belarus (2-2), Slovenia (0-0) and Bulgaria (0-0).

Their next match in the group is against the Netherlands in Tirana on September 12.