The 19-year-old faces Peruvian, Cesar Paredes, in Sheffield as part of the Matchroom card headlined by Josh Padley against Aqib Fiaz, live on DAZN.

It will be Maca’s sixth fight in his first year as a pro as he steadily builds his reputation as one of the country’s brightest teen talents.

But the Brighton-born junior-lightweight is still working hard to connect with Britain’s Albanian community after watching his fan base grow over the past 12 months.

“Every fight, the amount of Albanians buying tickets has more than doubled,” says Maca, whose dad was born in the eastern European country.

“I boxed in Sunderland in September and there were 40 Albanians there, the next one was 80, then it was 160. What happens is every time one comes, if I win, they will bring another five people to the next one.”

London-based welterweight Florian Marku, nicknamed the “Albanian King,” was well known for his hordes of noisy fans who followed him up and down the country after he turned pro following his kickboxing career.

Marku has not boxed since he was beaten by Chris Kongo in March 2024 and now Maca hopes to fill the void left by the 33-year-old from Lushnje. If he does, the teenager believes he could be revered by Albanians in the same way that multi-platinum musician Ora is.

“I feel like I’m the next one up,” Maca says. “I want to be the next big thing. There are fighters from all over the place, like in Germany and across England, but I have such an opportunity to be the biggest.

“Albanians are such proud people, they’re proud to be Albanian. If they know someone is Albanian they want to tell everyone.

“Like with Rita Ora, if you’re Albanian and you hear her song come on, you will tell everyone listening about how she’s Albanian.

“They want everyone to know she’s one of us. I want to be like that in boxing. When someone is doing well they are proud and want to support you.”

His next opportunity to harness some of that support comes on Saturday against Paredes (18-34-1, 5 KOs), who is well known to British fights fans having boxed in the UK 18 times in the past 15 months.

“And he hasn’t been stopped in any of those fights,” says Maca. “He has boxed people like Steven Cairns and Royston Barney-Smith and nobody has got him out of there.

“So for me, it's just about making a statement and showing everyone that I might only be 19 but I'm a man. I just want to keep bringing more eyes and people want to see people getting hurt, and those nice knockout reels. That’s what I’m after, too.”