Today I am
following up yesterday’s article about Serbian football. Partizan lost unsurprisingly 1-0 to Shakthar
Donetsk away, but that is not today’s headline. After a disappointing
close-to-last-minute saved draw at home against Slovenia and a quite poor World
Cup campaign Serbia’s coach Radomir Antic has been sacked.
Radomir Antic
Antic had
been 16 years in Spain as a coach for clubs like Barcelona, Real Madrid and
Atletico Madrid before he returned to coach the Serbian National Team. This
61-year old from Uzice has had a career with quite a few controversies, and on several occasions he's been sacked mid-season. It should be added that some of
his engagements has been with struggling clubs.
When coaching Barcelona he
brought a sinking ship back on the track and the Barca-fans should be thankful
for his role in bringing them to the top of Europe. Under him great talents
like Victor Valdés and Andrés Iniesta was given their first chances at the
senior team.
After the
poor performance in the 2-1 loss against Australia in the World Cup Antic was
given a four-match ban when he expressed his discontent with the referee when Serbia was denied
a penalty. Together with the poor start of the qualifying capaign it all added up to the Serbian National Team’s board sacking Antic.
Vladimir Petrovic
The
replacement is former Red Star, Bor, Vojvodina and Timisoara’s coach Vladimir
Petrovic – Pizon – from French pigeon. He’s also been coaching Serbia and
Montengro’s U-21 and China. His greatest achievement must have been as
assistant for the Red Star-team winning 1991’s European Cup.
He also had a
decent career as a player, including 13 matches for Arsenal. When taking over Serbia
this will be his third position in 15 months. Let’s hope for the Serbian player’s
sake that this is not going to continue. And on hiring Petrovic the Serbian
Football Federation’s Tomislav Karadzic commented: "Rather than go for an
expensive import we opted to give a talented home-grown coach a chance".
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