Well over 50 international football matches will be played on Wednesday, March 5.
They include some 2015 Asian Nations Cup games, Spain versus Italy and Portugal v Cameroon. They provide one of the last opportunities for experimentation for many of the qualifiers for the 2014 FIFA World Cup.
And yet the most significant fixture to be played that night pits the world’s 79th -ranked team against a side that does not yet have any ranking. It will take place in the city of Mitrovica in Europe’s frequently troubled Balkans region. It will be Kosovo’s first match since last month’s announcement that FIFA, world football’s governing body, had cleared it to play friendlies against all but countries that once, like it, constituted the former Yugoslavia.
When I caught up this week with Fadil Vokrri, President of the Football Federation of Kosovo (FFK), there was no doubting the importance he attached to the milestone.
“It is a very important step,” he told me, speaking by telephone in French, what passes for our common language.
“It is a historic match.
“We have been isolated for 20 years. After 20 years of isolation, we could say discrimination, at last there is justice.”
January’s announcement does not yet make Kosovo an international football team like any other.
FIFA must be informed in writing at least 21 days before each friendly played on Kosovan territory. And Kosovan teams will be unable to play official or qualification matches until such time as the FFK becomes a member of FIFA. (There will be no Kosovan team in Euro 2016, for example.)
Teams from Kosovo, such as the one that will take the field on March 5 may not, furthermore, display national symbols. Nor can the national anthem be played.
Instead, their blue shirts can be marked ‘Kosovo’, as well as carrying the symbol of a star the same size as the letter ‘o’ in ‘Kosovo’.
When I ask Vokrri if such details still rankle, he replies that “the most important thing is to be able to play football”.
Next month’s match, he adds, will be “an important step towards the recognition of Kosovo”, a Jamaica-sized fragment of the former Yugoslavia, which declared independence in 2008.
I am intrigued by the choice of Haiti as Kosovo’s opponent in this landmark fixture and wondered how the selection came about.
Perhaps it showed the limitations of an interview conducted over a less than perfect line in neither party’s native language, but I fail to secure a really satisfactory reply.
“It suited both of us,” Vokrri tells me. “They are a good solid team. We are happy.”
Indeed, I have to say that Kosovo may well need to be on their mettle if they are to maintain the impressive record they have established in their extremely limited international experience to date. This includes 1-0 wins over Albania and Saudi Arabia, as well as a 7-1 crushing of Monaco.
As Vokrri confirms, the FFK have not asked players of Kosovan heritage who have been involved in World Cup campaigns with the likes of Switzerland and Albania to play in the big match.
“Even without them we have a solid team,” he tells me.
The FFK President also discloses that the Haitians have inquired about the TV feed, so Kosovo’s great moment will at least be viewed in one corner of the Caribbean.
The glory days for Haitian football lie back in the 1970s.
I can distinctly remember their then star player, Emmanuel Sanon, giving Le Rouge et Bleu a shock lead against Italy straight after half-time in Munich’s Olympic Stadium in their opening match at the 1974 World Cup.
But the present vintage, who include players based in France, Poland, Switzerland and the United States, were good enough last summer to snatch a 2-2 draw with the Italians in a game played in Rio. This came three days after they lost 2-1 to world champions Spain in Miami.
As has been reported in Insideworldfootball, one player the FFK would like to come to Mitrovica for the historic match is Manchester United teenager Adnan Januzaj.
“We have asked for a meeting with his family” at a place of their choosing, Vokrri says, explaining that, should he accept, that would then open the door for them to make contact with his club.
As has been spelt out elsewhere, an appearance in this match would not affect Januzaj’s ability to choose between any of the various countries he qualifies for when it comes to his competitive international career. This is because the Haiti game is a friendly.
For Vokrri, though, it would be “desirable” that Januzaj play “at least five minutes”.
“I think it would be a strong symbolic gesture that football is above all politics,” he says.
A capacity 18,000 crowd will no doubt be expected next month and the FFK President tells me he thinks the President of Kosovo, Atifete Jahjaga, will be part of it.
He – and indeed Januzaj – were this week among a number of personalities to be awarded with honours by President Jahjaga for “exceptional” contributions to Kosovo.
Vokrri was one of eight people to get the Presidential Medal of Merit, while Januzaj, who turned 19 this month, was one of four footballers given the title of Honorary Ambassador.
David Owen worked for 20 years for the Financial Times in the United States, Canada, France and the UK. He ended his FT career as sports editor after the 2006 World Cup and is now freelancing, including covering the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the 2010 World Cup and London 2012. Owen’s Twitter feed can be accessed at www.twitter.com/dodo938.