The game's only goal was certainly the high point of an uninspiring ninety minutes, Skela curling a free kick from the edge of the 'D' high into Maik Taylor's top right hand corner in the 26th minute.
Ranked some fifty places below the visitors, Albania should have offered a confidence-boosting win for Northern Ireland, but instead Nigel Worthington's men found themselves slipping deeper into the mire: they have now gone seven games without a victory.
They were unable to train on the pitch before the game due to a waterlogged surface, and it showed in a disturbing lack of passing rhythm, as the eastern Mediterranean hosts worked the ball around midfield with ease.
Northern Ireland played at a training ground pace without ever constructing any passing patterns, and their failure to put pressure on the ball in midfield meant they rarely won it back in a hurry.
Albania could have had three within the opening half hour - Taylor had tipped one effort over the bar before Skela's strike, while the gangling striker Bogdani should have done better with an early volley.
The men in green and white did muster a little pressure after the hour mark, when Albania seemed content to contain them, winning several corners and twice almost fashioning an undeserved equaliser from the set piece.
First centre back Stephen Craigan's stretching header glanced off the top of the bar on the hour. Then, ten minutes later, another Grant McCann corner, this time from the left, fell in a puddle at the young defender's feet at the back post - but he could only stab the ball against the post from eight yards out.
Beyond the two near-misses there was precious little for the dedicated travelling support to cheer in a match that rarely raised itself to mediocrity.
Source:goal.com
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