His name is Vedat Muriqi, and it rhymes with “Pichichi,” the award given to LaLiga‘s top goal scorer each season,
The 31-year-old striker just became Mallorca‘s top scorer in the history of LaLiga, overtaking the greatest-ever African footballer: Samuel Eto’o. Now the big Kosovo international (6-foot-4, 204 pounds) is determinedly hunting down Kylian Mbappé at the top of Spain’s scoring charts, and he is already the first Kosovan to come anywhere close to being top marksman in any of Europe’s five big leagues.
Real Madrid‘s FIFA World Cup-winning center forward, Mbappé — one of the most fêted players on the planet — is now just two goals ahead of Muriqi (23-21), lost to a Muriqi winner when Los Blancos were defeated 2-1 at Mallorca’s Son Moix stadium a week ago and, like everyone else in the league, is being pummeled by “The Pirate,” who has scored more times (12) than anyone else in LaLiga since the start of January. Since Muriqi arrived on the Balearic island from Lazio, he’s been in a squad fighting relegation, surrounded by ho-hum players; Mbappé, meanwhile, is considered the best in the business and has superstars feeding him chances left, right and center.
Pound for pound, what does this say about Muriqi and his achievements?
This is the towering, ponytailed, gap-toothed striker who, every time he scores, covers his left eye with his hand to replicate the patch of a pirate, who sails around the island’s coast in a skip with a skull-and-crossbones flag flying so that he can post on social media whenever Mallorca win.
He’s the pirate now, but he wasn’t always. The whole bit stems from his brilliant sense of humor — an asset you’d have to convince several LaLiga central defenders he possesses because when he’s at work on the pitch, boots on, he’s an outright menace. It all started at Fenerbahce, during his breakthrough to the big time.
“It was my first big game and I scored, so when I went to do the postmatch interview, the guy said to me, ‘Did you see that your wife posted something on Instagram?'” Muriqi told ESPN. “But I had warned her beforehand, ‘Look, please be careful because we’re at Fener now and they’ve got 30 million fans!’ So now I thought to myself, ‘Oh my god, what has she done?’
“But the fans on social media had been asking her, ‘What are you feeding this guy?!’ And she had answered, ‘Raw meat!’ So her post went viral, the Fener fans started to call me ‘Cannibal’ … and whenever I went to restaurants, the staff used to bring me raw meat and think it was a good joke, saying ‘Are you not going to eat it?’
“However, when I moved to Lazio, the sporting director there didn’t like that nickname and told me, ‘You look more like a pirate,’ and from Italy I brought that nickname to Mallorca and did the eyepatch celebration whenever I score … so that’s my story.
“Scoring goals is my job, but this part is a bit showbiz and here in Mallorca, people love it.”
Muriqi is king of the island right now, but he’s self-deprecating.
“I know myself, I’m not a player with good technique, I’m not fast, so the only thing I have is my power — I have to use it in a good way,” he said. “Hold the ball, help my teammates; day by day, I’m trying to force more out of that ability. I know my strongest point and I try to play to it.”
When he’s regularly asked about a 2022 interview in which he was told by a local radio station that his then-Mallorca manager, Javier Aguirre, had called him ugly, Muriqi always shows his good-humored, quick-witted side.
His reply is always, “I know, I’m ugly! I’m not handsome … but I still think I’m quite attractive!” Whenever he’s asked whether his wife, Edibe, agrees with other men’s point of view that he’s “ugly,” he’ll perpetually grin. “She doesn’t see too well!”
Fine: he’s witty, he’s robust in the face of joshing. He’s a really cool guy. But this — in the midst of his current triumph, which really did see him tapping the side of his head to tell the Mallorca fans that they were crazy when they chanted for his Ballon d’Or coronation after that record-breaking brace on Sunday, and then breaking into a Baloo the Bear shuffle and singing along with them — is the same big, old lunk who was down on his hands and knees, openly weeping in agony and relief just a week ago.
Football will slap you in the face one moment and then wrap an arm around your shoulders the next.
The sequence of events went like this: Mallorca lost at fellow relegation candidates Elche immediately before the FIFA World Cup playoffs. Muriqi stepped up for a 92nd-minute penalty and skied it over the bar, spurning a chance that would have guaranteed a crucial point for his team. It was a horrible blow.
Then, with Kosovo, he powered his way through the World Cup semifinal playoff only to lose 1-0 to Türkiye and, in all likelihood, kiss goodbye to his dream of taking his small, young nation to that global football jamboree.
Worse, an uninformed fan on a Kosovan TV program (“Klan Kosova”) suggested that Muriqi — who has Turkish citizenship, something Fenerbahce asked him to apply for in 2015 so that he could free up space in their squad for another foreign player — might have shared Kosovo’s game plan with their rivals. It was unfounded nonsense — the type of trash some feel license to express because social media has unleashed a new era of saying the first mean thing that comes into one’s head.
Terrible, really. And it hurt Muriqi, badly.
He took to social media to state: “Shame on you! I am Turkish speaking like many born in Prizren, but more patriotic and more Kosovan than you! To think a player, in a crucial match for his country, would throw the game just because he was born in Prizren and speaks Turkish … You must have mental problems or be a heartless — devoid of feelings and respect for someone who has given everything for the Kosovo national team. Personally, I will never forgive you for all this pain. May God curse you!”
Hence, when his next match brought that mighty against-the-odds win over Real Madrid, Muriqi crashing home the winning goal off his weaker foot in the dying seconds, mere moments after Madrid had dramatically equalized, he was overcome with emotion.
“OK, I know I’m ugly, and tough, but I’m human, too,” he said. “And there’s a little kid at the heart of how I live, who’s got dreams and who wants to live positive experiences. I’ve had to suffer recently and those tears after beating Madrid were because of that.”
Muriqi then signed off his 55th Mallorca goal by reminding everyone that he’d prefer to stay and end his career there, even turning down a return to Fenerbahce in the winter transfer window, by adding: “Each goal is part of my debt to this shirt. Making history is special, but there’s still so much left to do. Surpassing a great name like Eto’o is an honor, but records are never achieved alone, so thanks to my teammates and everyone who believes in me. Without you, it would be impossible.”
Without him, it’d be impossible for this Mallorca squad to stay afloat in LaLiga. Right now they are eight points off the total commonly held to mean safety from relegation: 42. When they get there, as Captain Muriqi will ensure happens, don’t expect them to hoist the LaLiga flag, it’ll be the Jolly Roger in honor of “El Pirata.” I dare you not to salute.
