Sergej Milinković-Savić has only three matches for the national team of Serbia, but is expected to make the difference. He is currently the most wanted Serbian player and targeted by numerous European giants, such as Juventus or Manchester United. Milinković-Savić enjoyed a fantastic season in Serie A with Lazio.
Milinković-Savić was born in Spain, where his father, Nikola played football professionally at the time. His mother, Milana was a professional basketball player. Sergej is the older brother of Vanja Milinković-Savić a fellow footballer who plays as a Goalkeeper for Torino.
Sergej came through the youth academy of Vojvodina. He was one of the midfielders who emerged from the youth squad that won two consecutive national youth championship titles,
After only 16 games for the first team at 19, he moved to Genk, to move to Lazio after only one season.
Many describe him as a complete midfielder of a player. He is most responsible for playing the Central Midfield position, although he can well cover both the Attacking Midfield and Defensive Midfield positions. They compare him with Zinedine Zidane and Yaya Toure. He’s got excellent physical predispositions and is adorned with exceptional control of the ball, a good overview of the game and a fantastic finishing. Milinković-Savić is also dangerous when it comes to crosses. Thanks to his height he’s able to finish them via header.
With Serbia national under-19 football team, he won the European Championship 2013. Two years later he would be a member Serbia national under-20 football team who won the world cup.
In October 2015, Milinković-Savić received his first call-up for Serbia’s UEFA Euro 2016 qualifiers against Albania and Portugal. He remained an unused substitute in both games. In May 2016, Milinković-Savić was selected by newly appointed manager Slavoljub Muslin for friendly matches against Cyprus, Israel, and Russia. However, after failing to receive any playing time in the first two games, Milinković-Savić left the team in agreement with Muslin who said that some other players better fit into his tactical formations.
In October 2017, it was announced that Serbia caretaker manager Mladen Krstajić included Milinković-Savić in the squad for friendlies against China and South Korea when he played his first game.
The Serbian national team left a great impression in the match against Costa Rica. The win was absolutely deserved, and all the players deserve the highest marks, including Sergej Milinkovic-Savic, who played first competitive match for the national team.
Milinkovic-Savic showed class and proved to be an elite player. He played in the position behind the strikers and worked perfectly with Aleksandar Mitrovic, who was assisted in two situations, but Mitrovic did not scored. Sergej did some several attractive dribbles and confirmed his exceptional technique. He played the most key-passes (3) of all players, he was perfectly open and easily went into chances. Besides Adem Ljajic he did the most dribbles (3).
Sergej could do better, especially in term of pass accuracy (68,4%). But without a doubt, this was his best match in the Serbian national team jersey until now.
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This is a guest article from Dragan Čiča, Commentator and Journalist at Sport Klub Television. For more articles about the Serbian Football click on the banner.
