Where’s the end of him? Bekim Balaj played for both Sparta and Slavia, but never really impressed

Do you remember the Albanian striker Bekim Balaj? He played for both Sparta and Slavia in the Czech Republic, but he didn’t impress much in either team. Where is he now?

The young striker Bekim Balaj scored goals in Tirana, Albania, from where he was drafted into the Czech top flight by Sparta Prague in the 20212/13 season.

Balaj was quite regular in the autumn, scoring three goals in 12 league games. He played five games in the Europa League, scoring once, in Athletic Bilbao’s net.

However, he did not play a single game in the spring and Sparta sent him on loan to Poland in the summer. He played for Jagiellonia Bialystok, where he played regularly and scored seven league goals in a season.

However, after the end of the loan spell, his engagement with Sparta ended. The latter sold him to rival Slavia Prague, which was not having the best of times at the time. Balaj played 13 games in half a season, scored 3 goals and moved elsewhere.

His new club was Croatian Rijeka, where he scored 18 goals in a season and a half. While not some outstanding stats, he was still found by Russian club Terek Grozny, who paid 50 million crowns for him.

So, since the 2016/17 season, he has been playing in Russia, where he hasn’t impressed. After the end of his contract, he joined Austrian side Sturm Graz as a free agent in the summer of 2019.

He stayed there for two seasons, but didn’t make much of a splash and switched again after the end of his contract. And that’s already moving into the current season, so where does that leave him?

The 30-year-old Albanian striker is now playing for Nizhny Novgorod. There he plays in the starting line-up, but has not scored a single goal in 11 league rounds.

With his team he is in 11th place out of 16 in the Russian top flight. Balaj is still a member of the national team’s wider squad.

Source: Livesport, Transfermarkt