It is the story that has shaped Granit Xhaka and fuelled the fires that rage inside him. The details are savage, barely comprehensible, and it is a wonder that the Arsenal midfielder can articulate them. Then again, like his father, Ragip – who spent three and a half years as a political prisoner in Yugoslavia – Xhaka is not a man who runs or hides. “As far as I know, his first few months in jail were OK,” Xhaka says. “But then the beatings started.” Xhaka Sr’s crime had been to take part in demonstrations against the communist central government in Belgrade. It was 1986 and he was a 22-year-old student at the university of Pristina in Kosovo, which was then an autonomous...
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