“It is very special to me to see different national teams play with players born in Kosovo,” he said a few days before the Switzerland-Albania match. “It’s like watching Kosovo A team versus Kosovo B. But the real Kosovo team cannot be represented.”

Vokrri and his general secretary, Eroll Salihu, sat at a table plotting a cloak-and-dagger operation over coffee and beer. In front of them was a petition they had drafted for the Kosovo-born players who represent Switzerland and Albania to sign, pledging support for the official recognition of a Kosovo national team.

“We have to be sensitive with the Switzerland Football Association,” Salihu said as he organized a meeting with the Swiss players on the phone. “We do not want to be exposed.”

The delegation planned to drive to the Swiss team’s hotel to meet the players and procure their signatures. Their caution was understandable. The issue had become a hot topic in the Swiss news media. One newspaper, SonntagsBlick, published a front-page article with the headline “The Fear of Kosovo” under a photo of Xherdan Shaqiri. The fear is that Switzerland’s best players will leave and represent Kosovo if it is granted UEFA membership.

Recognition as an independent soccer nation is of personal importance to Vokrri, a midfielder whose career was shaped, and stymied, by his Kosovar heritage. He was the only Kosovar ever to represent the Yugoslavian national team, and to this day he is considered the greatest Kosovar to play the game.

Despite being one of the most talented players to emerge from Yugoslavia, he earned only a handful of international appearances in the mid-1980s.