Ermir Lenjani

Ermir Limon Lenjani (born 5 August 1989) is an Albanian professional footballer who plays as a midfielder for FC Schaffhausen in the Swiss Challenge League and the Albania national team.

Born in Karaçevë, Kamenica to Albanian parents originally from Prokuplje.

Lenjani moved to Switzerland as a child, where he started playing football and aged 12 he was asked to play for FC Tössfeld.

After spending around 2 years at Tössfeld, he joined the FC Winterthur academy.

He broke through into the first team during the 2009–10 season second-half.

On 8 March 2009, Lenjani debuted with Winterthur in the 2008–09 Swiss Challenge League match against Thun and scored the first and last goals in the 50th and 87th minutes, to give his team a 2–4 away victory.

Two months after he played his next match on 16 May 2009 against Locarno and scored against a goal in the 34th minute to equal the result 1–1, which was succeeded by a hat-trick of three goals from the Croatian midfielder Tomo Barlecaj and made a 1–4 away victory which came from behind.

He played in another 10 matches until the end and finished the season from second-half with total of 12 appearances and 3 goals.

The next season, he played the entire season, making a total of 29 appearances in which he scored 6 goals.

Lenjani was loaned out to Grasshopper Club Zürich for the first half of the 2010–11 season in order to gain experience.

He made it his debut with Grasshopper on 17 July 2010 in the opening match of the 2010–11 Swiss Super League against Neuchâtel Xamax where he came in as a substitute in the 74th minute in place of Steven Lang and the match finished in the 1–1 draw.

Lenjani scored 2 goals in a 0–12 destruction over Gumefens/Sorens valid for the 2010–11 Swiss Cup.

He played 6 league matches in total for Grasshopper.

He returned to FC Winterthur for the second-half remaining season and established himself as a first team player.

He made it 14 league appearances where scored 4 goals.

In the 2011–12 Swiss Challenge League he played 25 matches and scored 2 goals.

He started another league campaign, the 2012–13 Swiss Challenge League.

He played 16 matches and scored 2 goals in the first half of the season.

He joined Swiss Super League side FC St. Gallen in January 2013.

Lenjani first announced his desire to represent Albania internationally in January 2013, when he began the procedure to gain Albanian citizenship through his Albanian ethnicity.

He was called up by Gianni De Biasi for a friendly against Armenia in August 2013 but did not feature in the game.

Lenjani received his Albanian citizenship on 8 October 2013 among Faton Ademi to be eligible to play for Albania even in the competitive matches.

Lenjani gave two assist to give the victory 2–1 St. Gallen against Luzern on 3 August 2014 in a match which came from behind of the 0–1 result in the first half, thanks to Lenjani's assists in the 78th minute for the goal scored by Marco Mathys and for another goal scored by Džengis Čavušević in the 90+3rd minute.

Lenjani was first named by manager Gianni De Biasi in the Albania squad to face Switzerland and Cyprus for the 2014 FIFA World Cup qualifiers.

While during the winter transfers window German and Italian media talked about agreement reaching with Stuttgart or Verona, but on 5 January 2015, Lenjani signed with the French team of Rennes, after he passed successfully the medical examination.

He was presented to the media two days later, where he was assigned squad number 19.

He made his debut with the club on 13 January 2015 by playing as a starter in the quarter-final of the Coupe de la Ligue against Bastia, in where Lenjani left the team with 9 players on the pitch as he received a red card in the 76th minute.

Lenjani made it his first league debut on 7 February 2015 by coming on as a substitute in the 71st minute for Pedro Henrique in a 1–1 draw against Olympique de Marseille.

On 17 August 2015, Lenjani moved on loan with the purchase right to fellow French team FC Nantes until the end of the 2015–16 season.

He made a dream debut with the club in second week of 2015–16 Ligue 1, scoring the only goal of the match against Stade de Reims in the 76th minute after receiving a pass from Johan Audel.

On 26 July 2017, Lenjani returned to Switzerland signing for Swiss Super League team FC Sion rejoining his previous assistant coach at Albania, Paolo Tramezzani and he handed the 33 shirt number.

In the start of 2018, coach Gabri García decided to reduce the number of players which he liked to collaborate in the first team in a maximum of 20–22 players and consequently Lenjani along 8 fellows were out of his plans; Lenjani was sent in training with the second team of Sion.

On 7 April 2019, Lenjani scored inside ten seconds in Sion's 2–2 draw against Luzern, equaling the record for the fastest ever goal scored in Swiss football.

In addition to that, he also set up his team's second goal scored by Roberts Uldriķis.

On 11 September 2020, he signed a two-year contract with Grasshopper Club Zürich.

After two years with the club, his contract was not renewed.

During his time there, he was instrumental in achieving promotion back to the Swiss Super League.

On 9 June 2022, Lenjani signed with Ümraniyespor in Turkey for one season, with an option for the second year.

Lenjani returned to Switzerland in summer 2023, after his contract in Turkey expired, where he was looking for a club to conclude his career.

On 17 January 2024, he signed with FC Schaffhausen, who play in the Swiss Challenge League.