Not long time ago our young squad lost match against England with incredible big goal margin and a lot of people thought future of football in Serbia in dark. These days before Euro young players are playing UEFA U17 Euro and Serbian qualified for semi-final! Opponent will be Portugal, while in other semi final Denmark will play against Italy. Both games will be in Larnaca Cyprus. Serbia and Portugal will play first in 19 o'clock while Italy and Danemark will play in 21.
Serbia won Austria with 3:2 in quarter final while Portugal won Poland with 2:1. Djordje Ranković scored two goals and make one for teammate Mihajlo Cvetković. Scorer for Portugal against Poland were Eduardo Felicíssimo and Rodrigo Mora. Two Serbian players and coach have been suspended for this semi final. Uroš Djordjević i Stefan Mladenović will not play and coach Jovan Damjanović will not be on the bench.
Jovan Damjanović, Serbia coach: "I have a lot of faith in these guys, I had no doubt that they would deliver all this the right way. These new generations coming are good; we have to nurture them."
Suspended coach told this before this game:
I have a lot of faith in these guys, I had no doubt that they would deliver all this the right way. These new generations coming are good; we have to nurture them.
João Santos, Portugal coach said:
"We now have another tough match. If [Serbia] have made the semi-finals they have a lot of quality so we will have to fight to be in the final.”
Both are right, no one is coming in semi final if there is no quality in that squad. I am not too big optimist before this game, but I'll watch it carefully tomorrow and hope for the best. Question is why those young players can't repeat similar success in senior stage and what's wrong are we doing with them when they enter in adult ages ?
Serbia was even champion of world in young categories not so long ago and beat Brazil in final. Soon after President of football association at this time and youth coaches were removed from position because one local club doesn't like fair competition and like to win it outside the pitch by non sport means. Maybe that is the reason.
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