AS RUDI VATA answers my call, he is on his way to the funeral of Sabah Bizi, who came before him in the lineage of Albanian football greats.
The closer Vata gets to the stadium at which he and the country are paying its respects, the more often our call is interrupted by fans seeking photos and autographs. One fan takes Vata’s phone and yells at me, “This is one of the best people who exists on our side of the planet! I mean it, I do mean it!”
Vata played 59 times for Albania, and his 1995 Scottish Cup victory with Celtic was the most significant European medal won by an Albanian international outside of home.
His son Rocco is now in the early phase of another promising career though may become more fondly remembered in Ireland than in his father’s land.
Rocco qualifies for Ireland through his maternal grandmother, and has played for solely Ireland since U15 level. He is also eligible for Albania, Scotland (the place of his birth), and Montenegro (through his paternal grandmother.)
Rocco, still 19, has impressed in his debut season for Watford in the Championship, and was on Heimir Hallgrimsson’s radar for a spot in the senior Irish squad last November. That didn’t happen, but if Vata maintains his Watford form for the next couple of months, Hallgrimsson will find it hard to omit him from the squad for the March games against Bulgaria.
Rudi says he hasn’t had any contact from Hallgrimsson and that Rocco has not made any firm commitment as to who he will represent at international level.
“I tell Rocco, you are the man”, says Rudi. “You are the man who decided to leave Celtic, so he is the man who will decide his future.”
This is unsurprising, given Rudi is a man of self-determination. Though he lives in Scotland, he is in Albania and Montenegro a lot these days, so as to spend more time with his mother and her family. This is possible, he says, since he “become the owner of myself.”
To grow up in communist Albania was to have the sense that your life didn’t really belong to you until you did something about it.
“In 1991 I decided to leave my country as, in general, everybody had to do something for their own existence,” says Rudi.
Albania was renowned as Europe’s poorest country during the final years of communist rule, and it was from this paranoid kind of hopelessness that Vata’s brother fled, hopping on a fishing boat without a word of warning. In 1991, a year after making his senior international debut, Vata was part of an Albanian side that lost 5-0 to France in a friendly international in Paris.
Later that night, Vata slipped out of his hotel carrying only his boots and the Eric Cantona jersey for which he swapped at the Parc des Princes, and successfully claimed asylum. While living in France he met some Albanian refugees who informed him his brother was alive, and living in Italy.
Open elections were held in Albania in 1992, at which point Vata could return to his homeland. A couple of months later, Vata came to Dublin for an international fixture with Jack Charlton’s Ireland: Albania were beaten 2-0 but then-Celtic manager Liam Brady was in the crowd, and was sufficiently impressed by Vata to bring him to Scotland, which became his children’s home.
“Life is all about making a plan and building a strategy when you are young,” says Rudi, “and then going with full power and not being worried about making mistakes.”
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Rudi’s life has given him an evangelical belief in striving, hard work, and meritocracy. During our conversation he derides the present Albanian government, and an unequal, nepotistic system.
“Success without merit . . . this is worse than defeat,” he says. “If you don’t deserve it, don’t accept it. Easy things are not real things. If you achieve things through hard work, they are the best moments: this is the best feeling you can get from life.”
Rudi Vata, pictured in 2020 during his time as an adviser to Belgian club, Royal Excel Mouscron. Alamy Stock Photo
Alamy Stock Photo
So its unsurprising his son is now in one of Britain’s most difficult and meritocratic industries. Rudi says Rocco’s natural talents were obvious to him from an early age. The family used to spend their summers in Montenegro, where kids from Serbia, Russia, Ukraine, and Hungary also holidayed and gathered for daily games. Every morning they came to Vata’s door to ask to play with Rocco, rather than his elder brother or his cousins.
Rocco was three or four years younger than most of these kids, but he was their best chance of winning.
“I believe competition starts in an early age, it doesn’t start in the youth team at Celtic, it starts in the area you grow up,” says Rudi. “From early age you build up that mentality, and those balances: the co-ordination, the movements.”
Once Rocco’s talent became clear, Rudi coached him to develop it while building a footballer’s other necessary tools.
“Technique is everything. I advised him to work with the ball, as first touch is everything in football.
“As soon as you get your first touch right, the whole move is much easier. You have to work from an early age to co-ordinate that movement, to put your body in that position.
“When we played one v one in my garden, his Mum told me to let him win, as he was a little boy.
“I said, ‘No, no no, he needs to grow up and he needs to face the defeats. I am happy he is angry and he is crying, as he will always think how he will beat me one day, and he is going to work to do that.’ I never made it easy for him, to be honest.”
Easy things, after all, are not real things. Rocco’s older brother also had natural talent, but apparently not the same kind of commitment.
“My other boy had good skills when he was young,” says Rudi, “but I realised he didn’t want to fight enough. I told him to find another path, as he was not for this game. He didn’t want to chase back and work enough.”
Rocco joined Celtic’s academy at the age of seven, and though his father was a tough taskmaster at home, he rarely went to see his matches.
“As a child I didn’t want to put pressure on him. Every child wants to make their parents proud, and I felt that pressure is not fair on the boy. When you sit on the side of the training ground and the boy is feeling that pressure, you are giving the child too much responsibility to make you proud. Children should be allowed to make mistake; they should be free there, and they should not have that pressure.”
Rocco impressed those who were watching. He signed his first professional contract with Celtic in 2021, played regularly for their ‘B’ team from 2022, made his senior debut at the end of that year, and scored his first senior goal in a cup tie at the start of last year.
But with his contract expiring at Celtic last summer, Rocco showed consistency with his father’s style of self-determination by leaving his father’s club for Watford. Rudi admits he was “heartbroken” by his son’s decision.
Watford, however, were very keen suitors. The club’s sporting director flew from London to Milan to Tirana and then to Montenegro with two club jerseys in his luggage. He gave one to Rocco and the second to Rudi, telling the teenager if he didn’t sign, the club would take his father instead.
Tom Cleverley is the Watford manager and spoke upon Vata’s arrival of a player with big potential, whose introduction to the relentless thrust and physicality of the Championship would have to be managed. Rudi says he is impressed by Watford’s plan for his son, in which his nutrition and physical development are closely monitored and managed.
But where Vata played a bit-part role in the first few months of the season, he had forced his way further into Cleverly’s thoughts by the end of November. Vata has played in all of Watford’s last 10 games, scoring three goals and assisting another three, the stand-out being a stunning long-range strike against Premier League Fulham in the FA Cup.
From his father’s creed on the importance of his first touch, Vata has developed quick feet and so can beat a defender by darting either way. His ball-striking skills were on display against Fulham, while FAI scouts also praise his timing in breaking into the box.
Cleverly plays a Ruben Amorim/Stephen Bradley style 3-4-2-1, and Vata usually plays as one of the two number 10s behind the central striker. He has also played wide in a 4-3-3 and Cleverly believes he can develop into a false nine, and perhaps even a more conventional striker.
“Being able to get inside the ground early, I generally see the Watford players having a walk on the pitch when they arrive,” says Andrew French, who covers the club for the Watford Observer. “Vata is almost always with a ball at his feet, just walking with it, doing flicks, and keepy-ups. He is like a kid at school who just loves playing football.”
Rudi, as you might imagine, says his son has a long way to go yet, as his body adapts to a hectic schedule that regularly packs in six games in 18-day stretches.
“I always tell him never to forget the five ‘P’ rule: Proper Preparation Prevents Poor Performance”, says Rudi.
“Football is a very difficult job, but if you have discipline, you have an easy game on your hands, and you’ll enjoy the benefits from the game.”
Rocco’s international future remains unconfirmed, though the FAI are in a strong position by having had him in the Irish system since 2019. Rudi is clear his son will decide whom to represent, and nobody else. Regardless of who he chooses, there is one consistent message.
“To be honest, if we are being realistic, Ireland, Albania, Montenegro, Scotland, these countries are never going to win a World Cup or European Championship.
“If you want to be special and enjoy your time with a national team of that level, you need to be the Lewandowski or Shevchenko of this country, to be indisputable and the most important player.
“Poland never won anything, but everyone will remember Lewandowski, Ukraine never won anything but everyone remembers Shevchenko.
“Like George Best with Northern Ireland, or Liam Brady and Paul McGrath: those players become indisputable in their country, they will never be forgotten because they were special.
“He needs to do a lot of work to be honest, he needs to focus now to reach the top of the ladder, as it is a long journey.”
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'Success without merit... this is worse than defeat' - The tough love that shaped Rocco Vata
AS RUDI VATA answers my call, he is on his way to the funeral of Sabah Bizi, who came before him in the lineage of Albanian football greats.
The closer Vata gets to the stadium at which he and the country are paying its respects, the more often our call is interrupted by fans seeking photos and autographs. One fan takes Vata’s phone and yells at me, “This is one of the best people who exists on our side of the planet! I mean it, I do mean it!”
Vata played 59 times for Albania, and his 1995 Scottish Cup victory with Celtic was the most significant European medal won by an Albanian international outside of home.
His son Rocco is now in the early phase of another promising career though may become more fondly remembered in Ireland than in his father’s land.
Rocco qualifies for Ireland through his maternal grandmother, and has played for solely Ireland since U15 level. He is also eligible for Albania, Scotland (the place of his birth), and Montenegro (through his paternal grandmother.)
Rocco, still 19, has impressed in his debut season for Watford in the Championship, and was on Heimir Hallgrimsson’s radar for a spot in the senior Irish squad last November. That didn’t happen, but if Vata maintains his Watford form for the next couple of months, Hallgrimsson will find it hard to omit him from the squad for the March games against Bulgaria.
Rudi says he hasn’t had any contact from Hallgrimsson and that Rocco has not made any firm commitment as to who he will represent at international level.
“I tell Rocco, you are the man”, says Rudi. “You are the man who decided to leave Celtic, so he is the man who will decide his future.”
This is unsurprising, given Rudi is a man of self-determination. Though he lives in Scotland, he is in Albania and Montenegro a lot these days, so as to spend more time with his mother and her family. This is possible, he says, since he “become the owner of myself.”
To grow up in communist Albania was to have the sense that your life didn’t really belong to you until you did something about it.
“In 1991 I decided to leave my country as, in general, everybody had to do something for their own existence,” says Rudi.
Albania was renowned as Europe’s poorest country during the final years of communist rule, and it was from this paranoid kind of hopelessness that Vata’s brother fled, hopping on a fishing boat without a word of warning. In 1991, a year after making his senior international debut, Vata was part of an Albanian side that lost 5-0 to France in a friendly international in Paris.
Later that night, Vata slipped out of his hotel carrying only his boots and the Eric Cantona jersey for which he swapped at the Parc des Princes, and successfully claimed asylum. While living in France he met some Albanian refugees who informed him his brother was alive, and living in Italy.
Open elections were held in Albania in 1992, at which point Vata could return to his homeland. A couple of months later, Vata came to Dublin for an international fixture with Jack Charlton’s Ireland: Albania were beaten 2-0 but then-Celtic manager Liam Brady was in the crowd, and was sufficiently impressed by Vata to bring him to Scotland, which became his children’s home.
“Life is all about making a plan and building a strategy when you are young,” says Rudi, “and then going with full power and not being worried about making mistakes.”
Rudi’s life has given him an evangelical belief in striving, hard work, and meritocracy. During our conversation he derides the present Albanian government, and an unequal, nepotistic system.
“Success without merit . . . this is worse than defeat,” he says. “If you don’t deserve it, don’t accept it. Easy things are not real things. If you achieve things through hard work, they are the best moments: this is the best feeling you can get from life.”
So its unsurprising his son is now in one of Britain’s most difficult and meritocratic industries. Rudi says Rocco’s natural talents were obvious to him from an early age. The family used to spend their summers in Montenegro, where kids from Serbia, Russia, Ukraine, and Hungary also holidayed and gathered for daily games. Every morning they came to Vata’s door to ask to play with Rocco, rather than his elder brother or his cousins.
Rocco was three or four years younger than most of these kids, but he was their best chance of winning.
“I believe competition starts in an early age, it doesn’t start in the youth team at Celtic, it starts in the area you grow up,” says Rudi. “From early age you build up that mentality, and those balances: the co-ordination, the movements.”
Once Rocco’s talent became clear, Rudi coached him to develop it while building a footballer’s other necessary tools.
“Technique is everything. I advised him to work with the ball, as first touch is everything in football.
“As soon as you get your first touch right, the whole move is much easier. You have to work from an early age to co-ordinate that movement, to put your body in that position.
“When we played one v one in my garden, his Mum told me to let him win, as he was a little boy.
“I said, ‘No, no no, he needs to grow up and he needs to face the defeats. I am happy he is angry and he is crying, as he will always think how he will beat me one day, and he is going to work to do that.’ I never made it easy for him, to be honest.”
Easy things, after all, are not real things. Rocco’s older brother also had natural talent, but apparently not the same kind of commitment.
“My other boy had good skills when he was young,” says Rudi, “but I realised he didn’t want to fight enough. I told him to find another path, as he was not for this game. He didn’t want to chase back and work enough.”
Rocco joined Celtic’s academy at the age of seven, and though his father was a tough taskmaster at home, he rarely went to see his matches.
“As a child I didn’t want to put pressure on him. Every child wants to make their parents proud, and I felt that pressure is not fair on the boy. When you sit on the side of the training ground and the boy is feeling that pressure, you are giving the child too much responsibility to make you proud. Children should be allowed to make mistake; they should be free there, and they should not have that pressure.”
Rocco impressed those who were watching. He signed his first professional contract with Celtic in 2021, played regularly for their ‘B’ team from 2022, made his senior debut at the end of that year, and scored his first senior goal in a cup tie at the start of last year.
But with his contract expiring at Celtic last summer, Rocco showed consistency with his father’s style of self-determination by leaving his father’s club for Watford. Rudi admits he was “heartbroken” by his son’s decision.
Watford, however, were very keen suitors. The club’s sporting director flew from London to Milan to Tirana and then to Montenegro with two club jerseys in his luggage. He gave one to Rocco and the second to Rudi, telling the teenager if he didn’t sign, the club would take his father instead.
Tom Cleverley is the Watford manager and spoke upon Vata’s arrival of a player with big potential, whose introduction to the relentless thrust and physicality of the Championship would have to be managed. Rudi says he is impressed by Watford’s plan for his son, in which his nutrition and physical development are closely monitored and managed.
But where Vata played a bit-part role in the first few months of the season, he had forced his way further into Cleverly’s thoughts by the end of November. Vata has played in all of Watford’s last 10 games, scoring three goals and assisting another three, the stand-out being a stunning long-range strike against Premier League Fulham in the FA Cup.
From his father’s creed on the importance of his first touch, Vata has developed quick feet and so can beat a defender by darting either way. His ball-striking skills were on display against Fulham, while FAI scouts also praise his timing in breaking into the box.
Cleverly plays a Ruben Amorim/Stephen Bradley style 3-4-2-1, and Vata usually plays as one of the two number 10s behind the central striker. He has also played wide in a 4-3-3 and Cleverly believes he can develop into a false nine, and perhaps even a more conventional striker.
“Being able to get inside the ground early, I generally see the Watford players having a walk on the pitch when they arrive,” says Andrew French, who covers the club for the Watford Observer. “Vata is almost always with a ball at his feet, just walking with it, doing flicks, and keepy-ups. He is like a kid at school who just loves playing football.”
Rudi, as you might imagine, says his son has a long way to go yet, as his body adapts to a hectic schedule that regularly packs in six games in 18-day stretches.
“I always tell him never to forget the five ‘P’ rule: Proper Preparation Prevents Poor Performance”, says Rudi.
“Football is a very difficult job, but if you have discipline, you have an easy game on your hands, and you’ll enjoy the benefits from the game.”
Rocco’s international future remains unconfirmed, though the FAI are in a strong position by having had him in the Irish system since 2019. Rudi is clear his son will decide whom to represent, and nobody else. Regardless of who he chooses, there is one consistent message.
“To be honest, if we are being realistic, Ireland, Albania, Montenegro, Scotland, these countries are never going to win a World Cup or European Championship.
“If you want to be special and enjoy your time with a national team of that level, you need to be the Lewandowski or Shevchenko of this country, to be indisputable and the most important player.
“Poland never won anything, but everyone will remember Lewandowski, Ukraine never won anything but everyone remembers Shevchenko.
“Like George Best with Northern Ireland, or Liam Brady and Paul McGrath: those players become indisputable in their country, they will never be forgotten because they were special.
“He needs to do a lot of work to be honest, he needs to focus now to reach the top of the ladder, as it is a long journey.”
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
Albania Celtic FAI Father and Son Republic Of Ireland Rocco Vata Soccer Watford