In the 11-and-a-half seasons of the A-League nobody has scored more goals than Besart Berisha. Melbourne Victory’s centre forward overtook Archie Thompson’s tally of 90 when he converted a fittingly controversial penalty in the 30th minute of Monday night’s encounter with Newcastle Jets.
Since arriving at Brisbane Roar in 2011 Berisha has dominated the A-League. He scored in his second game, bagged the competition’s fastest hat-trick in his fourth, and capped his debut campaign by proving the decisive figure in the most controversial of grand finals. His goalscoring exploits have contributed to three championships, two premierships and an FFA Cup winner’s medal.
We can rhapsodise about Berisha’s many virtues as a footballer, but it is his unconcealed willingness to win at all costs that sets him apart. His hunger for the ball, for goals, and for success is insatiable. Simply, winning football matches matters more to him than most people.
During the first half of the recent Melbourne derby, Berisha missed a cluster of chances he would have expected to take. He was one finish behind Thompson’s record at the time. “I smashed chairs. The bin. The rubbish bin. Maybe some doors. I really smashed everything to relax a little bit,” Berisha explained afterwards about his state of mind at half-time. “I wanted it too much. I wanted to score too early. I had to smash some stuff inside and then I was fine. It was relieving.”
Thirty-three minutes later he tucked away the winner. After which he celebrated like the scorer of the most important goal in football history. Most of the strikes that contributed to that record equalling moment were treated with similar rapture.
To supporters of Berisha’s rivals such naked ambition can seem gauche. But it’s a desperation with context. Berisha’s family fled Kosovo for Germany when he was a boy. Their lives in east Berlin were hard but football offered an escape. A child prodigy, by his mid-teens he was playing for money to contribute to his family’s well-being. Every match in his formative years was loaded with meaning and purpose. For as long as he can remember, football has been more than just a game.
“The game is my life and I take it so seriously,” he told Guardian Australia in 2013. “Even at 14 I was so serious. I didn’t want to lose any game.” A statement that prefaced an explanation of how, at 17, he fought tooth and nail to secure his first professional contract, fearing failure would see him returned to Kosovo. If Berisha appears to play as though his life depends on it, that’s because at times it has.
“You must understand me,” he implored The Australian in 2012, “this is not just a game for me. I did not learn nothing else. I did not finish school. This is my life. I don’t have anything else. I always wanted to be a professional. I am very passionate about what I do. I don’t go into a game saying ‘this is just a game’. This is everything for me because it helps me and my family to try and have a better life than before.”
That Berisha and his family have a better life in Australia is the product of a happy accident. Roar assistant Rado Vidosic was in Germany during the 2011 pre-season watching his son Dario train with Arminia Bielefeld. Berisha, a team-mate at the time, caught his eye. He soon became the focal point of one of the great club sides in Australian football history.
This is the natural entry point to laud Berisha’s potency; his composure in front of goal or the expert timing of his runs, perhaps. But in breaking Brisbane’s goalscoring records it was his teamwork and defensive play that earned him the most considered praise. The goals were a byproduct of Berisha doing his job.
Ange Postecoglou’s method relied on an overwhelming dominance of possession. To achieve this he required a lone striker that could set the defensive tone and force quick turnovers. Berisha was tailor made for such a selfless role. At each opening whistle he would morph into Liam Neeson (with whom he shares more than a passing resemblance) and turn his maniacal focus on regaining possession into a Hollywood hostage situation. He possessed the particular set of skills required for the job and it made him a defender’s nightmare.
As Vidosic explained earlier this year: “He loves to press on his own. He likes to press a defence to one side so that the rest of the team can adjust for the second pass which goes into a crowded area. For someone to work so hard for the team like that is priceless.”
Watching Berisha in action for Victory remains exhausting. He involves himself in every phase of play, be it hunting down opponents, offering to receive a clearing pass with his back to goal, or finding space between defenders to be in the right place at the right time to put the ball in the back of the net. All the while his facial expressions and body language betraying the wildly vacillating emotions he is unafraid of hiding.
These emotions have at times proven destructive. His bare-chested offering outside of Pascal Bosschaart in 2012 went beyond the bounds of acceptable passion and his three red cards during the 2013-14 season remain a league record. But these outbursts are increasingly rare as the wild eyes and bleached fauxhawk give way to a 31-year old at ease with his status and accomplishments. Nonetheless, he remains the player opposition fans love to hate, a status he relishes.
As he approaches veteran status Berisha shows no signs of winding down. Never outside the top four goalscorers in a season, he is again leading the race for the golden boot. With only three goals from open play before round 10 there were murmurings his intensity had dropped off and he was on the decline. He responded with a perfect hat-trick, a riposte worthy of the greatest goalscorer the A-League has ever seen.
