King Manaj debuted with Barcelona first team in the preseason of the 2021-22 campaign and he did so by marking three goals against Nàstic. Better cover letter, impossible. Later, he added another against Girona, four goals in 117 minutes played.
They were (and continue to be) difficult times for the Barça team’s coffers. Was the summer in which Messi left. Piqué lowered his salary so that the club could register Memphis, Eric García… and Rey Manaj. He was included in the squad for the first three league games (Real Sociedad, Athletic Club and Getafe), but remained on the bench. Rushing the transfer market that summer, he went on loan to Spezia. “Koeman was counting on me, but I preferred to go out to play more games,” he acknowledged.
He had already entered another call-up in 2020, against Getafe, shortly after signing for the Barça reserve team from Albacete. The coach was Quique Setién. He didn’t play either. He did not make his debut in the first team in an official duel, but he did train many times. “I felt like I was playing FIFA on the Playstation… but it was all real. For several months I had the honor of running and training with Messi. I didn’t really talk much, but I heard everything. In those days, another La Liga club wanted me, but Barcelona decided to keep me. In the end I was the one who asked to leave. In Barcelona after Messi’s departure there was a lot of confusion,” he confessed in an interview in the” Gazzetta dello Sport “.
He was loaned to Spezia, to the country where it all started for him. Rey was born in Albania, in Lushnje, but his parents emigrated to Italy and there he ended up being part of the youth team. Inter de Milan. There he did get to play with the “seniors”, led by Roberto Mancini, but mainly he was loaned to several teams: Cremonese, Pescara, Pisa… And Granada, his first experience in Spain. The second was Albacete until Barcelona noticed him in January 2020.
This second experience in Italy after leaving the Camp Nou was not satisfactory and his next destination was England, Watford, where he was hampered by an injury. He only played seven games (275 minutes) and In February 2023 he terminated his contract. At just 26 years old, the promising forward had been left without a team.
The resurrection in Türkiye
He found the lifeline in Turkey, at Sivasspor, where he has scored 22 goals in 33 games. Of them, 18 were in the League, which placed him third in the scoring table, only behind two classics like Icardi (25) and Dzeko (21). This rebirth will surely mean that next season he will return to a major league and has opened the doors of the national team and the Euro Cup. Sylvinho, the coach, has called him after two years of absence. With Albania, by the way, he could not have had a better debut: in a friendly against Kosovo, He entered the second half and had time to go from the sideline to the area, because there was a lateral foul in favor of his team, and finish off with a header when barely ten seconds had passed since the change..
It was, logically, the first ball he touched. Rey is one of the threats that Italy, the defending champion of the title, will encounter today.
