After 18 years Lazio Sports Director Igli Tare leaves the club. He arrived as a player in 2005.
This is what he declared to the Italian state-owned TV:
“After 18 years my wonderful experience as sports director of S.S. Lazio will end. I made this choice some time ago, but I waited until Lazio reached the Champions League objective, aware that I've built a strong team, with extraordinary players chosen to achieve this goal. It was a long and intense adventure made of joys, defeats and trophies. I will never stop thanking President Lotito for the opportunity he gave me, the Biancocelesti fans who have entered my heart, the club with all its members, the players, the staff and all those who have been close to me on this journey. Special thanks especially to my family who have always been by my side. A prestigious opportunity which I had both as a footballer and as a director and which I will never forget, taking every single moment of this experience with me. With the hope that each of you will continue to jealously safeguard this beautiful reality with the same passion I did. Sempre Forza Lazio ".
The player
Igli Tare was born on July 25, 1973, in Valona, Albania. He started his football career with Partizani Tirana playing in the youth sector and reaching the A team where he debuted professionally in 1993. In 1994 he signed for Waldhof Mannheim in the second division of the Bundesliga. After a year he moved down to the fifth tier and played for Ludwigshafen. In 1996 Tare signed for Karlsruhe but he played very little and after six months he was sent to the B team.
In the 1997-98 season Tare finally got his breakthrough at Fortuna Dusseldorf in the German second tier. He played 66 games in two years and scored 27 goals. This attracted the interest of Kaiserslautern who signed him in 1999. In his first year he played 28 games but only scored 5 goals. Not that great if you are a centre forward. As a consequence the following year he made only ten appearances (2 goals) in half a season.
In January 2001 he signed for Brescia. Everybody was very sceptical at first but he proved to be an ideal partner for Roberto Baggio and ended up playing and scoring more than the internal competition, that is, Luca Toni. He stayed for two and a half years in Lombardy, appeared in 75 games and scored 15 goals under manager Carlo Mazzone, becoming a fan favourite.
In 2003 Mazzone moved to Bologna and Tare followed him. Here too he became a fan favourite, not for his goal scoring abilities – 12 goals in 57 games over two seasons – but for his attachment to the club. In his last year, Bologna were relegated to Serie B.
In 2005 he moved to Rome and signed for Lazio. He was used as an alternative to the attacking duo Tommaso Rocchi-Goran Pandev as he was a more physical player. He did not play much, 65 appearances in three years, and he scored even less, just 5 goals, but his knowledge of several languages and the fact that he was a leader in the changing rooms gave President Claudio Lotito an idea.
At International level Tare played 68 games for Albania and scored 10 goals.
Lazio Career
Season | Total played (goals) | Serie A | Coppa Italia | Champions League | Intertoto Cup |
2005-06 | 24 (3) | 22 (3) | - | - | 2 |
2006-07 | 15 | 14 | 1 | - | - |
2007-08 | 26 (2) | 18 (1) | 6 (1) | 2 | - |
Total | 65 (5) | 54 (4) | 7 (1) | 2 | 2 |
Sports Director
At the end of the 2007-08 season he quit football and initially became a coordinator for Lazio and then,in 2009 once he passed his exams, sports director. Lotito was looking to replace Walter Sabatini and thought that Tare would be ideal. The Albanian was not convinced at first, but later accepted.
In the early years Lazio were probably one of the most successful clubs in the signing of players with a poor CV and increasing their value. Tare never had much of a budget and he did what he could with the little he had. During the years he managed to buy important players such as Hernanes, Miro Klose (as a free agent) and Lucas Leiva (for a very low fee), discovered Felipe Anderson, Sergej Milinkovic-Savic and Luis Alberto, just to name a few, and gave new life to Ciro Immobile who has become Lazio's greatest goal scorer in history.
In later years there were mistakes on players that looked like they had a pedigree but in the end did not. He also had clashes with managers, since he did not always follow what they asked for as far as transfers were concerned. His management of the primavera team was appalling, always looking for young talented teenagers but in the end never really finding them. Together with all the players who did arrive there were also the ones that slipped away: Keisuke Honda, Burak Yilmaz and David Silva to name a few.
Goodbye
Tare’s contract ends in the summer of 2023. Rumours have stressed how he and manager Maurizio Sarri did not get along and often had very different points of view. Since Lotito has invested a lot in Sarri and wants to take Lazio to a more professional level with the Tuscan coach, it was time for Tare to go. His contract will hence not be renewed.
Tare is highly respected outside Rome’s ring road. In 2019 apparently he was offered a lot of money to go to AC Milan but stayed on. He will certainly not remain unemployed for long.
Igli Tare has been bitterly hated by a good number of Lazio fans over the years. But one must also remember all the good players that have come to the club and not just the bad ones. Furthermore, he contributed to bringing a lot of silverware to Rome (the Coppa Italia three times and the Super Coppa three times), and there is no doubt that his loyalty was always with the club and with Lazio’s colours.
But it was time to say goodbye. Thank you Igli. He leaves Lazio in a good place, the Champions League.
Sources