Alban Tafaj

Alban Tafaj
Personal information
Full name	Alban Tafaj
Date of birth	3 December 1971 (age 52)
Place of birth	Tirana, Albania
Position(s)	Defender
Youth career
0000–1992	Partizani Tirana
Senior career*
Years	Team
1992–1997	Partizani Tirana
1997–2006	Tirana
Total
Managerial career
2009	Tirana (caretaker)
2009–2010	Tirana (caretaker)
2012	Tirana (caretaker)
2012–2013	Tirana (caretaker)
	*Club domestic league appearances and goals

Alban Tafaj (born 3 December 1971) is an Albanian former professional football manager and retired player. He played for both Albanian city rivals Partizani Tirana and Tirana.

Playing career

Born in

Albanian Superliga six times as a player, one of them being with Partizani and the others with Tirana.^[1] Tafaj also won the cup and Supercup

trophies with the two clubs. He retired in 2006 at the age of 35.

Managerial career

Following his retirement from professional

Albanian Superliga in 2009 after former manager Agustin Kola left the club after narrowly losing out on the Albanian Cup trophy to Flamurtari in March of that year. Tafaj finished the season and kept Tirana at the top of the table to win the championship.^[2] Once again he became the caretaker manager after Croatian manager Ilija Lončarević left the club in October 2009 after a series of poor results.^[1]

He stayed on that position until January 2009.

In October 2012, then still technical director of the club, Tafaj replaced Artur Lekbello as caretaker of Tirana for the fourth time, staying there until February 2013. He had already been caretaker earlier that year after Julián Rubio left the club for Flamurtari in September 2012.^[3]