We've made it too easy for England

"It upsets me because we (the players) work like professionals and they do not. They never listen, never come to talk to the players, never show us any respect."

Talking about the approach to tomorrow's game, Vata said: "The English FA sent people out two weeks ago to go over every fine detail of preparation. In Albania, the FA didn't even arrange a game for us for four months before we are suddenly expected to play two top European sides in five days. On Sunday morning after the Germany game, players had to get up at 5am to catch a plane to Vienna and then on to Tirana, just because the FA wouldn't organise anything more sensible."

Why he felt so mad about it all, he said, was because, even in the face of all this incompetence, his team of nomadic pros - not one of the starting 11 against Germany play at home - were doing the country proud. They had beaten Greece, scared Finland and come within two minutes from the most improbable draw in Leverkusen, only to be denied by a German winner which was clearly offside.

They had performed so admirably that it had got to the point where the country now actually expected them to beat England, reckoned Vata. "That frightens me a little because we're getting too much pressure."

Frankly, he shrugged, it was unrealistic to expect anything with their two key players - himself, rated one of the best defenders in the Bundesliga with Energie Cottbus, and Lille winger Edvin Murati - both suspended.

But he knows his men have given a nation preoccupied by rather more pressing concerns in neighbouring Macedonia a welcome distraction and good cause to dream.

As fans lined the route near the airport last night, they knew every face behind the windows because English football is closely followed here and much admired. Admired but not feared any more.

It was another world when an astonished England squad came here 12 years ago to a forgotten, backward outpost under the grip of Communism and were gazed at by locals who looked as if they had just encountered extra-terrestrials. Where once they had been greeted by donkey carts loads of fans, now the main streets buzzed with Mercs. There was no culture shock on either side any more. Just another city and another game.

Vata knew there would be Englishmen coming here harbouring grim visions about some mafia-controlled wild west, but he dismissed the image with a passion. "People go and look for the bad side of the country. Yes, it's sad but true about corruption, not just in football but in life here, so you have some people making millions and some who are starving.

"But there are more people fighting the corruption and this is a country which has the sort beauty you cannot find anywhere in the world. And things are going to get better. Some investment and faith and Albania will take off. While other countries went forwards, we went backwards for 50 years under Communism but we are going to catch up fast."

Just like their football team, perhaps. Tomorrow, on "a great night, an exciting night", their players would be giving their all again to put a nation in the kind of international shop window it deserved, said Vata, albeit a shop window dressed without any help from those officials who had held them back for so long.

"Until they change, I will criticise them until my last breath," said this proud Albanian.

Vata also spoke of the friction between the players and the Albanian football authorities when he said: "Our FA haven't given us any support at all."

Vata won't be at tomorrow's match because of club commitments and added: "It will be very difficult against England tomorrow. I would say, though, that we have made great progress. We don't care now who we have to play and there is no inferiority.

"There are no Maradonas around any more and it's all about fighting, running and doing your best."