PREVIEW: Can Stojković’s Serbia do something special at EURO2024?

Guided by Dragan Stojković, Serbia will be at their first EUROs this summer in Germany as an independent country. The Baltic country will get their tournament underway on June 16th, facing England in Gelsenkirchen.

Here’s everything you need to know about Serbia in the lead-up to EURO2024.

Head coach Dragan Stojković will manage his first EUROs this summer with Serbia after being appointed in March 2021. The ex-Marseille player will want to build on the success he brought to the nation when they qualified for the 2022 FIFA World Cup, after beating Portugal in the 90th minute.

In the qualifying stages for EURO2020, they lost on penalties to Scotland in the play-off finals. This time around, Serbia secured their spot at EURO2024 by placing second in their qualifying group, finishing four points behind an undefeated Hungarian side.

Serbia only lost two games throughout the group stage, which is a positive sign for the nation going into the tournament. Key players like Aleksander Mitrović and Dusan Tadić showed why they are the key players heading to Germany: Mitrović got a hattrick against Lithuania, and Tadić consistently showed his potential during the matches.

But the player to watch out for on this Serbian team will be Dusan Vlahović – the Juventus player has had an up-and-down season, yet still scored sixteen goals and provided four assists for the Italian club.

His attributes in the Serbia team will help them break down teams and whilst playing alongside Mitrovic, opposition defences have every reason to be terrified. 

Serbia’s two friendlies before the EUROs were against Austria and Sweden. They lost against Austria 2-1 on June 4th, with Strahinja Pavlović getting the only goal for the Balkan country. However, four days later, Serbia beat Sweden 3-0 with goals from Mitrovic, Tadic and Sergej Milinkovic-Savic. 

Stojković knows what it takes to perform well at major tournaments and had a very successful playing career himself; he was the star player for Yugoslavia at the 1990 World Cup and made it into the All-Star team for the tournament. He also captained Yugoslavia in the 1998 World Cup, but couldn’t reach his full potential in Europe due to injuries.

Now tasked with his first tournament in a managerial position, it will be hard for Stojković to cause an upset as England and Denmark will be favourites to make it to the round-of-16. Nonetheless, Serbia can certainly be the underdog of Group C and they’ll look to live up to that billing when play their first game against the Three Lions on June 16th.

They then play Slovenia – a team they’ll feel confident of defeating, which could set up a classic against Denmark on June 25th to decide the outcome of the group.

We’ll provide extensive coverage of the Balkan state’s campaign on FromTheSpot.