Alioski: Ezgjan (Gianni)
2017-Current
(Leeds Player Details)
(Player Details)
Winger
Born: Prilep, Macedonia: 12-02-1992
Debut: Bolton Wanderers (a): 06-08-2017
5'8" 10st (2018)
Born in Prilep, Macedonia, of Albanian descent, his family moved to Switzerland and he was raised in Fribourg and it was there that he joined his first football club,
FC Wunnewil-Flamatt as a schoolboy. At the age of ten he joined Young Boys of Bern and progressed through their Junior teams. Because of his Albanian descent he
was qualified to play for them, or his country of birth, Macedonia. He chose the latter and was soon representing his country at the Under Seventeen level, appearing
once. At the beginning of the 2010-11 season he moved from the BSC Young Boys Under-Eighteen team to the Under Twenty-One team. He started twenty and came
off the bench twice as a left-back. He scored his first goal for the club at home to FC Eschallens Region on 26th October 2011 being the only goal of the game and then
scored a second. He added his second on 9th May 2012 when he got his team's only goal in a 1-2 defeat at ES FC Malley LS. He made his debut for the Macedonian
Under-Nineteen team, playing a full game in the 0-3 defeat by the Italian Under-Nineteens on 19th May 2011, followed quickly by full games in the 1-3 loss to the Turkey
Under-Nineteens twelve days later and then a 0-5 loss to the Germany's Under Nineteens on 2nd June 2011. In his second season at Young Boys he started twenty-three
games and came off the bench once. He had scored two more goals, the first in a 5-0 home win over FC UGS Geneva on 1st September 2012 and the second in his
final match on 24th October 2012 in a 2-0 home win over SC Dudingen and started eleven games in the 2012-13 before being loaned to FC Schaffhausen on 18th
January 2013, for the rest of the season and started ten games before returning to BSC Young Boys at the end of the loan period. In July 2013 he joined FC Schaffhausen
on a free transfer. In his first season, in which he played Left Back, he started twice in the Swiss Cup and in the Challenge League Twenty-three times and came on as a
substitute in three more and also teice say unused on the bench and twice missed games for red card offences and one more for an accumulation of yellow card offences.
He also managed two goals, the first, the only goal in the home win over FC Chiasso on 30th November 2013 and once in a 3-0 home win over Servette FC on 13th April
2014 with the second. His International career was starting to blossom and he started seven and came on twice, almost exclusively at Left Back, in the Macedonian Under
-Twenty-One side. His debut came, as a half-time substitute, in a 1-1 draw in Bulgaria on 14th November 2012. He had a full game in the 0-0 draw in Albania on 6th
February 2013 and in the 5-3 win in Turkey on 23rd March 2013 and then as a seventy-ninth minute substitute in a 0-5 defeat in Bosnia and Herzegovina, all in friendlies to
take his Under-Twenty-One caps to four. He then had five full games in the UEFA European Under-Twenty-One Championship qualifiers firstly in two away games, in a 0-0
draw with Azerbaijan on 8th June 2013 and 1-2 loss in Norway on 10th September 2013. These were followed by two home games in a 1-0 win over Azerbaijan on 15th
November 2013 ana 1-3 defeat by Norway four days later. The final game was in a 0-2 away defeat by Portugal on 5th March 2014. In the following season he was again a
regular in the first team and made a couple of appearances at Left Midfield with the rest in his regular position of Left Back. He started in the Swiss Cup tie but was
withdrawn after thirty-nine minutes. In the Challenge League he started thirty-five games and once sat unused on the bench. Once more he found the net twice in the season
with goals in the 4-0 home win over FC Chiassoon 18th October 2014 and also in another 4-0 win, this time at FC Lausanne-Sport on 21st March 2015. The 2015-16
season saw him leave FC Schaffhausen in January 2016 on loan to FC Lugano for the rest of the season. Prior to that he had appeared almost exclusively at left-back for
FC Schaffhausen, starting twice in the Swiss Cup and Fourteen times and two games from the bench in the Challenge League. However, while at FC Lugano he featured
five times in the more advanced role of right midfield as he started ten games, came on six times as a substitute and was unused on the bench once. In those advanced
roles, he also scored a brace in the 4-0 away win at FC Zurich on 11th May 2016 and five days later he was on target once more as FC Lugano were defeated 1-3 at home
by his former team, BSC Young Boys. In the Swiss Cup he was at Right Midfield as a seventy-fifth minute substitute in the Swiss Cup Semi-final 2-1 win on 2nd March 2016
at FC Luzern and then started in the 0-1 defeat in the final by FC Zurich on 29th May 2016 in which he came off after fifty-six minutes. After he had returned to FC
Schaffhausen he was then signed on a permanent basis by FC Lugano in July 2016. He had played seventy-seven Challenge League and three Swiss Cup games, scoring
three League goals.With his new club he was then constantly played in an advanced role of either Right or Left Midfield and finally at Centre Forward, as cement a regular
place, starting thirty-four Super League games, helping FC Lugano to finish third, and two in the Swiss Cup. His strong technique, natural speed and his attacking instincts
were soon at the fore and he scored fifteen League and one Swiss Cup goals for Lugano, also making eleven assists to become acknowledged as the most exciting
prospect in the Swiss Super League and its third best leading goalscorer. There was much interest from European Clubs, but it was Leeds United that claimed his signature
on a four year contract and paid in the region of £2.2m on 13th July 2017. He had scored nineteen goals in fifty Super League games and made three Swiss Cup
appearances while at FC Lagano. He arrived at Elland Road with thirteen full caps for Macedonia to his name. He had made his debut, as a Left-Back on 11th October
2013 and played a full game in a 0-1 defeat in a Group A World Cup European Qualifier by Wales at the Cardiff City Stadium. It was quickly followed four days later in the
same competition by another full game as Macedonia were beaten 1-5 in Serbia at the Gradski Stadion Jagodina. He took his caps to six with four appearances in the
Group C European Qualifiers in the first he started the game but was replaced at half-time by Muhamed Demiri on 8th September 2014 in a 1-5 defeat by Spain in Valencia,
then on 9th October 2014 he came on as a half-time substitute in a 3-2 win over Luxembourg to replace Agim Ibraimi at Nacionalna Arena Filip II Makedonski (Telekom
Arena, Skopje). Three days later, he played a full game in the 0-1 defeat to Ukraine at the Arena Lviv aand then a further full game on 15th November 2014 in the 0-2 defeat
by Slovakia at the Telekom Arena. He then sat unused on the bench for the away games with Slovakia and Luxembourg and the home game with Spain. He scored his first
goal for Macedonia in his seventh appearance which came on 5th September 2016 at the Loro Borici Stadium in Shkoder, Albania when he equalised in the fifty-fifth minute
in a 1-2 defeat. This was followed by three more caps in the same group to take the tally to ten with full games against Israel, who won 1-2 on 6th October 2016 at the Telekom
Arena, a 2-3 defeat by Italy three days later at the same venue and another loss to Spain by 0-4 on 12th November 2016 at Nuevo Los Carmenes in Granada, playing a full
game in each. A Yellow Card in the final minute of that game was sufficient to see him suspended for the next match in the same tournament in Lichtenstein. Appearances in
two friendlies, in a 3-0 win over Belarus on 28th March 2017 at the Telekom Arena, in which he was replaced by Darko Churlinov with seven minutes left on the clock and a
full game in the 0-0 draw with Turkey on 5th June at the same venue took him to twelve caps before his thirteenth six days later in a European World Cup Group G Qualifier
with Spain, which was won 1-2 by the visitors at the Telekom Arena in which he played a full game on the Left Wing. He made his Football League debut for Leeds on 6th
August 2017 at the Reebok Stadium in a 3-2 away win. His first goal came three minutes before time in his fifth League game on 26th August at the City Ground in a 2-0 win
over Nottingham Forest. The goal won the EFL Championship Goal of the Month for August 2017 and went on to win the Leeds United Goal of the Season for 2017-18. He
hit a purple patch in November when he scored in four consecutive games on the 4th with the only goal in the sixty-seventh minute of a 1-3 defeat at Brentford, on 19th with
the second goal in the fifty-fourth minute in a 2-1 home win over Middlesbrough, three days later at Molineux in a 1-4 defeat by Wolverhampton Wanderers when he made it
1-2, three minutes after half-time, and on the 25th in a 2-0 away win at Barnsley, when he got the second goal four minutes into injury time at the end of the first half. He took
his total for the season to seven with goals in the 2-2 draw at Pride Park with Derby County on 21st February 2018, when he made the score 2-1eleven minutes before time,
and second goal against Barnsley this time at Elland Road in the return fixture on 21st April 2018, when he got the winning goal after fifty minutes. He was virtually ever-
present starting forty, coming on twice as a substitute and being three times unused in the forty-six match Championship season. He also came on as a substitute three
times and was unused on the bench in the four League Cup encounters but was rested for the one F.A. Cup tie. His International career continued with three games at Left
Back, three at Left Midfield, one at right Midfield and one on the Left Wing as his caps rose to Twenty-One as he played four full games in Group G of the European World
Cup Qualifiers with a 1-0 win over Israel at the Sammy Ofer Stadium in Haifa on 2nd September 2017, a 1-1 draw three days later at the Telekom Stadium in Skopje with
Albania, a 1-1 draw with Italy at the Stadio Grande, Torino on 6th October 2017 and a 4-0 win over Lichtenstein at the Stadion Mladost, Strumica three days later. They
were followed by two friendlies, the first on 11th November 2017 with a 2-0 win over Norway at the Telekom Arena, Skopje, where he was replaced two minutes before time
by Kire Markoski, and then a 0-0 draw with Finland at the Gloria Sports Arena, Belek, Turkey on 23rd March 2018, when he was replaced four minutes from time by Marjan
Radeski and then two UEFA Nations League D Group 4 games on 6th and 9th of September 2018, the first of which saw Gibraltar defeated 2-0 at the Victoria Stadium
Gibraltar with Alioski netting the second after thirty-five minutes and he was again on target to take his International goals to three with the opening goal after thirteen
minutes at the Telkom Arena in a 2-0 win over Armenia. Once more he and Leeds were off to a flying start to the 2018-19 season as they had only dropped four points in
their first eight Championship games as he was everpresent and had already netted at Derby County and Norwich City where Leeds had two resounding wins.