The journey to becoming a Celtic first team player is never easy but few can match that of Rudi Vata.
The former defender’s story is one of struggle and determination after a cunning “masterplan” which saw him swap shirts with the legendary Eric Cantona one night before waking up in a refugee camp the following morning.
Vata’s is a tale of triumph over adversity after he feigned injury while playing for the Albanian national team, ran down the Parc de Princes tunnel, got changed, stuffed $50 into his pocket and made a beeping for a Paris police station where he asked to claim political asylum. That was in March 1991 – two years later he earned a dream move to Parkhead where he spent three years, during which he lifted the Scottish Cup under Tommy Burns to become the first player from his nation to win an honour in a major European country.
Vata’s break came when he caught the eye of then Hoops manager Liam Brady thanks to a man of the match performance for Albania against the Republic of Ireland in 1992 but it was THAT game in Paris and events after it that paved the way.
Speaking on the Celtic Exchange Podcast, Vata, who has penned his story in a new autobiography, explained: “Life is all about having the three C’s. the chances, the changes, and the choices. “There was no freedom in Albania… Everything was sad. Everything was poor. The hope was dying and the people were struggling.
“The communists had left the country in such a poor state and the people were struggling. You couldn’t grow. I wanted a real life, a normal life, nothing more.
“That night in France was my chance to get out of Albania, the communists knew there time was coming but I wasn’t going to wait. So 48 hours after playing in the Parc Des Princes against all those big stars, Deschamps, Cantona, Laurent Blanc, I changed a jersey with Eric Cantona, and then I wake up in a refugee camp, and you’re classified the same as any other refugee.
“You don’t get any special treatment. You get the same food, the same kind of bed. The rules and regulations are the same for everybody. So I was in a refugee camp but I still had to try and live the life of a professional footballer. I tried my best, fitness in sport is everything but when you have the kind of mindset to always hope for the best, I never thought for one moment that I wasn’t going to make it. I could see I was thousands of miles away from making it, but somehow deep inside me I knew with my work, with my dedication, with my mentality I’m going to make it, and the opportunity will come.”