"SOME people believe football is a matter of life and death," once said the late, great Liverpool manager Bill Shankly. "I'm very disappointed with that attitude, I can assure you it is much, much more important than that."

For Besart Berisha, the new, hugely promising Burnley player, football IS his life. Football, it could also be said, saved his life.

Berisha was just six-years-old when he and his family fled their native Kosovo when civil war broke out under Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic's ruthless regime.

They found refuge in Berlin, where, under German law, they were only supposed to stay for six months before leaving the country altogether.

Berisha's mother, however, had been severely traumatised by the devastation they had left behind in their homeland. Her parents had been killed in the conflict, and as a result, the family was permitted to stay in Berlin on a temporary basis.

The young Berisha found solace in football. Football, it seemed, was also quite content in its shell, as the honorary Berliner developed with fervour and dexterity.

His agent, Henner Janzen, explained: "He joined his first club at the age of seven when he first came to Germany and he was playing for clubs in Berlin.

"When I first discovered him he was playing in a very small team in the fifth division. I heard about a young player, who was only 16-years-old, whereas the others were 25 and 26. Besart was the top scorer in the league and I thought I've got to take a look at him'.

"Football is his life, you can really say that. Football saved his life and football is his life.

"He is living for football and he in some way became a star and helped his entire family.

"Because of what happened in Kosovo he grew up fast."

For a decade, from 1994, Berisha represented a selection of youth teams - Berliner VB49, BFC Dynamo, TSV Lichtenberg and Tennis Borussia Berlin - before signing a professional contract with SV Hamburg in 2004.

At 18, the club deemed him too young and inexperienced to make an impression on the first team, so loaned him out to Aalborg Boldspilklub (AaB) in the Danish Superliga championship, then AC Horsens. At AaB he scored 14 goals for the reserves, but his first team appearances were limited as striker Simon Bræmer got the nod, while at AC Horsens Berisha became the club's top league goalscorer with 11 in the 2005-06 season.

He returned to Hamburg that summer, when he signed a new four-year contract.

It was the start of big things for the Kosovo-born star as, just a few weeks after receiving an Albanian passport in September, he made his international debut against the Netherlands.

He scored his first goal for Hamburg on December 6 at home to CSKA Moskva, and in doing so, became the first Albanian ever to score a goal in the group stages of the Champions League.

His life was beginning to take on a greater sense of stability after a turbulent and, at times, uncertain childhood.

"He grew up in Berlin and finished high school in Germany but he never had a German passport," explained Janzen.

"He had never played football in Kosovo but he started playing for a German team.

"The German national Under 19s, 20s and 21s wanted him to play for them, but he couldn't get a German passport so that wasn't possible.

"As a solicitor, I've been working together with him for all these years. The first passport he got to be able to get a work permit to play in Germany was a Serbian one. Kosovo was officially a part of Serbia when he went to Denmark, and it was then that the Albanians had their eye on him.

"When he was asked what nationality he was he said he wasn't sure. He said he felt like he was German-Albanian, and of course, there is no such thing.

"Give him some time in Burnley and he might say he feels British and that he eats his steak bloody!"

Berisha can now live the dream he has harboured of playing football in England after being granted a work permit.

He has already had a taste of Turf Moor, where he scored his first international goal in a 3-1 defeat by England B in a friendly last month.

And Janzen admitted his protege is relishing the chance to become a more permanent fixture in East Lancashire.

"He is a very good guy and I'm certain that once he is able to play there people will definitely like him very much," he said.

"I've seen the reaction on the internet and there were some that were pretty negative but I'm sure, once he is there, they will be impressed.

"He's still only 21 so there is a lot more to come from him."