Serbia v England - Sun 16th June, 20:00 | Euro 2024 Group C

Match Result Prediction?

  • Total voters
    123
  • Poll closed .
Serbia are no mugs and England seemingly haven't got the right balance. The only thing in England's favour is Serbia are also defensively weak
 
I unfortunately didn't (and don't) have time to do a preview for this game, even though I said I'd do it. Luckily enough, I remember reading a preview on the Fulham forum from some other Serbian guy that I pretty much entirely agree with, so here it is:

First of all, anything but a convincing win from England would be a huge shock to me, as not only are you much better on paper, but our recent performances have been shocking. And going back even further, after the Qatar WC qualifiers we only played well in Nations League. Our coach is inept and he picked many players that aren't supposed to play for out NT. Our goalkeepers are great but that's about it.

We set up in an offensive 3-4-3 or 3-4-1-2 formation, with wingers playing as wingbacks. Our only gameplan is basicaly to try to outscore our opponent, as we are very limited defensively. This worked well in the WC qualifiers, as most of our players were in top form and we even outplayed Portugal in both games(drew at home, won in the final game away to clinch the first place in group). Now however, we struggle against teams like Montenegro,Bulgaria and Cyprus. Our defence is conceding too many chances and our attack isn't working.
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<<<<<Players that were selected:>>>>>
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Goalkeepers:
Vanja Milinkovic-Savic - Likely to be our starting GK as he has been for the past 2+ years. Staring goalkeeper for Torino in Serie A. Second most clean sheets in Serie A this season behind Sommer (he has 18, Sommer has 19). Was our best player at the World Cup, despite us conceding a ton of goals. Very decent keeper overall, with no big weaknesses apart from poor penalty stopping ability.

Djordje Petrovic - Chelsea's starting goalkeeper. He's had a meteoric rise in recent years, going from a club in Serbian league to MLS and now to the PL, he's still only 24. He still needs to improve his reactions on crosses from set-piece situations and his passing isn't elite either. Great shot stopper and penalty kick saver. Looked great every time I've watched him this season and as far as I can tell, Chelsea fans seem happy with his performances too.

Predrag Rajkovic - Starting goalkeeper at Mallorca in La Liga. He's a bit erratic and prone to silly mistakes, but on his day an excellent goalkeeper. He was our keeper when we won the u20 WC in 2015. There was a stat that Opta posted recently that no goalkeeper saved more penalties in the top five leagues since the 2019/2020 season.
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Defenders:
Strahinja Pavlovic - Red Bull Salzburg centreback. A defender I suggested here before we signed Bassey. Very similar to Vidic in the way he defends, but much better on the ball. Still inexperienced so does make mistakes from time to time, but has a potential to be a world-class defender. He's only 23 and already has 33 caps for Serbia (considering the fact that we play much less games than top sides like e.g.England, it's even more impressive).

Nikola Milenkovic - Fiorentina centreback. When he broke through, he looked like he was going to be a world-class centreback, but he has stagnated in his developement since. Still an okay defender. Aerialy dominant.

Milos Veljkovic - Werder Bremen centreback, ex-Spurs youth prospect. Started as a defensive midfielder but was moved to centreback position. Great at passing, but he has inconsistent defensive performances and is often a defensive liability.

Srdjan Babic - Spartak Moscow centreback. Probably my favourite centreback that was called-up for this Euros, but our coach doesn't seem to fancy him. Maybe not the best centreback we have, but he's a very consistent performer.

Uros Spajic - Crvena Zvezda (or Red Star Belgrade as it is commonly know in England) centreback. Controversial inclusion in the squad. Was once pretty good and played in France, but he's had a lot of injuries and honestly I don't know what we can expect of him. He has been pretty decent in Serbian league, but then again, that league is of very poor quality.

Nemanja Stojic - TSC Backa Topola centreback. Another centreback from Serbian Superliga. TSC is the club that was in the Europa League group with West Ham. Another controversial call-up. He was by far their best defender in the Europa League, but they were very poor there (19 goals conceded in 3 games). He has been one of the top 2-3 centrebacks in the Serbian league, but as I said, the league is poor. Not sure what I expect of him either.

Filip Mladenovic - Panathinaikos leftback. Great crosser of the ball. Poor at pretty much everything else nowadays as he lost a lot of pace and durability due to his age.
 
Midfielders:
Sasa Lukic - a player you're all familiar with. I hope with his improvement in form this season at Fulham he'll gave a good tournament.

Nemanja Gudelj - Sevilla defensive midfielder/centreback. Very experienced player. One of our only 2 traditional defensive midfielders in this squad (and the other one is terrible). He blows hot and cold for our NT and is usually either MOTM or the worst player on the pitch. Scored some cracking goals for Sevilla in recent years.

Srdjan Mijailovic - Crvena Zvezda defensive midfielder. Possibly the most shocking call up of all time in our national team. Terrible player. Zvezda fans want him out of the club, he's been comfortably their worst player in Champions League and pretty poor in Serbian league as well. Slow, no positional awareness, poor passer, a truly woeful player.

Nemanja Maksimovic - Getafe midfielder. Works his socks off everytime, good leadership qualities. Not great but not terrible at other aspects of the game. Probably best known in Serbia for his winning goal in the u20 WC final against Brazil(fun fact,Andreas played for Brazil then).

Ivan Ilic - Torino midfielder. Torino signed him from Verona as a replacement for Lukic when we signed Sasa. He was signed by Man City when he was 16. Inexperienced player, but somewhat reminiscent of Nemanja Matic. He hasn't played a lot for Serbia due to his age and injury troubles, but he had some stand out performances most notably in the Nations League decider against Norway, where we secured promotion to Nations League A.

Sergej Milinkovic-Savic - Al Hilal midfielder. Was one of the best midfielders in Serie A for years, but he decided to go for money and he joined Al Hilal this summer. He's pretty slow, but he's excellent in pretty much every aspect of the game. Not sure how he'll play after a full season in Saudi league though.

Lazar Samardzic - Udinese attacking midfielder/number 8/winger. A player I've mentioned here multiple times as someone I'd love to see at Fulham. Very skilfull, hard working, excellent passer and he has a good shot as well. Still needs some refining in his game, but I rate him extremely highly, I'd say he's one of our most talented players in many years. Unfortunately, our coach hardly gives him a chance.

Mijat Gacinovic - AEK Athens midfielder. Very fast player who can play anywhere on the pitch (he played in all attacking and midfield positions in his career and even played at both wingback positions). Highly versatile and experienced player who spent many seasons in Bundesliga. I expect he'll play a similar role that Bobby plays for us, i.e. he won't be a starter but he'll fill any positions that's needed.

Filip Kostic - Juventus left wingback/midfielder/winger. A pretty one-dimensional player, but he's world class at the two things he's good at, running and crossing. Got a decent shot as well. He's been in poor form for both club and country recently.

Veljko Birmancevic - Sparta Prague wide midfielder/winger. Fast and direct player, good in one on one situations. One of the best players at Sparta who one the domestic double, he's having the best season of his life. Very few caps for Serbia so far (2 or 3 I think and all in friendlies), but now he got his chance. Potential x-factor.

Andrija Živković - Paok wide midfielder/attacking midfielder/winger who usually plays as a right wingback for our national team. He's had a great season and Paok and was their best player in pretty much every big game. Used to be one of the highest rated young players, but his father almost ruined his career. Luckily he managed to somewhat salvage it in Greece, but he could have achieved so much more... Great crosser of the ball and dribbler. Small in stature so he can sometimes be bullied by stronger players. Not a wingback but our coach plays him there so he often struggles with the defensive side of the game.

Dusan Tadic - Fenerbahce attacking midfielder/winger/striker. Was once a great player but he is begining to decline a bit. That year in which Ajax reached semifinals he was world-class. Still an important player of our NT. Our captain and the real leader of our team. Unfortunately our coach always play him for full 90 minutes and many fans including myself think that he should be rested in the final 20-30 minutes, as he isn't as efficient by that time.
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Attackers:
Aleksandar Mitrovic - another player you all know a lot about. Alongside Tadic he's been our most important player in the last decade. He's also been our second biggest leader after Tadic. However despite him still having some good games after moving to Al Hilal, he's visibly slower and less durable than he was when at Fulham. His aerial dominance, hold-up play, passing and dribbling is still at the same level it was before though, so he'll probably still be usefull and I think he'll be particularly motived for the England game.

Dusan Vlahovic - Juventus striker. He's had injury issues since the World Cup and that has somewhat slowed down his development. Everyone in Serbia is waiting for him to take over from Mitro, especially now that Mitro has ruined his career by going to Saudi Arabia, but despite him having some excellent games for our NT, he's been nowhere near as consistent as Mitro has been in the past. Had a solid season at Juventus, he even got awarded the best striker in Serie A reward. Everyone expects him to be the starter against England and in all other games at the tournament, either alone or with Mitro.

Luka Jovic - Milan striker. He looked like pretty much the best young striker while at Eintracht and got the big money move to Real Madrid, but unfortunately it just never clicked for him there. After a number of unsuccessful or moderately successful season, he had a pretty good year at Milan. Sure his numbers aren't spectacular, but they are decent and he didn't play a lot of minutes and his goals per minute ratio is very good. Best finisher of all of our strikers. Could be an interesting option of the bench.

Petar Ratkov - Red Bull Salzburg striker. A somewhat surprising call-up, as we play with one striker more often than we do with two, so not sure we really need 4 strikers. Young and unproven stiker. Pretty good finisher with great physical characteristics.
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Coach:

Dragan Stojkovic - a legendary player, but a terrible coach. We looked excellent in the qualifiers for the World Cup, but after that it has been a hard watch. Comfortably the worst coach at the tournament and he just signed a new 2 year deal.
 
kippaxwarrior said:
Rumors are Alexander-Arnold will play alongside Rice in the middle. Foden on the wing

Why is he obsessed with 2 DM's?
Click to expand...
Because our defense and keeper are below average at international leve. Damage limitation in that department. Our defense as a team is probably ranked between 6 - 8 in the tournament in reality.
 
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