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Besart Berisha
Steve Cotterill appears to have pulled off something of a coup with the signing of Albanian international Besart Berisha who so impressed the Turf Moor crowd during the recent England B international
He was without doubt Albania's best player and the watching Steve Cotterill has now brought him to Burnley on a permanent basis in a three year deal that sees him move from Bundesliga club Hamburg SV for a fee of around £340,000 (€500,000).
The 21-year-old forward was born in Priština, Kosova in the former Yugoslavia but he and his family moved to Germany to escape the war when he was a youngster. After playing in youth football he was signed by Hamburg but for the first two years was loaned out to clubs in the top league in Denmark.
In the first of those two seasons he struggled to break into the Aalborg Boldspilklub side despite scoring fourteen goals in their reserve team, but in 2005/06 he had better fortune with AC Horsens. He played regularly in the first team and ended the season as the league's leading goalscorer with eleven goals. That was enough for Hamburg to offer him a four year contract which he signed just a year ago.
In September of last year he received Albanian citizenship and in the following month made his international debut against Holland. Just last month he scored his first international goal in the game at Burnley. He also became the first Albanian ever to score a Champions League goal when he netted for Hamburg in their tie against CSKA Moscow in December.
Today he has become Burnley's second summer signing following the capture of Hungarian goalkeeper Gabor Kiraly as Steve Cotterill continues to build a stronger squad for the 2007/08 season.
What a signing for us !:cool: the guy showed bags of talent & class againsed Englands B team. two international signings so far for us :cheese:
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bound to be shit if hes joining you lot....
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yea i thought that :laughing: maybe he was just a one game hero :laughing: but no great signin an i knew ud waste no time in tellin everyone on here :laughing: he was the best player on the field never mind for albania
