The World Cup: Serbia

ThisDrinkingLife and The World Cup: Serbia

Had the displeasure of watching, on the box, Serbia’s two games versus the Republic of Ireland in the qualifiers. Serbia drew at home, 2-2 and won 1-0 in Dublin, but overall they didn’t play well at all. They looked very brittle and disjointed and although they had some good technical players they were not a team that I think I would cause too many problems for more established teams like Germany and co.

They have got a new coach Mladen Krstajić, after dispensing with Slavoljub Muslin who got them into the damn thing. So sure enough it takes time for the new coach to get his ideas across as that can be seen with their intermittent form in the friendlies. I dont know what the Serbian FA want, the manager did very well to get such a rubbish team into the World Cup, and if they are playing so poorly then surely the senior players should get a kick up the backside rather than sack the coach?

They have some quality in the squad though, most notably Nemanja Matic of Liverpool, Luka Milivojević of Palace, Nemanja Matić of Man United, and lastly Aleksandar Mitrovic on fire for promotion champions Fulham, scoring 12 out of 17 games. Good players for sure, but can they gel together for Serbia on the big stage? They also have some of the squad from their Under 20 World Cup winning team so that should help.

In a group with Brazil, they wont win it. but they have a chance against Switzerland and Costa Rica for sure and could sneak into the second round without too much hassle. If so then its Germany up next, but remember they did beat them the last time they were in the World Cup, 1-0 in 2012, a result that at the time few expected, so maybe perhaps lightning could strike again? I doubt it though!