FIFA World Cup 2018: Serbia

Serbia qualified for their second FIFA World Cup as an independent nation by winning a tough qualifying group which included the Republic of Ireland and Austria. After their group stage exit at the 2010 finals in South Africa, the Balkan nation will hope they can progress from the group this time around. In this article, well look at their squad, tactics, key man, a young player to watch and a wildcard who can be vital. We also look at new coach Mladen Krstajic who leads Serbia in Russia 2018.

Serbias squad

Coach  Mladen Krstajic

The former Schalke 04 defender was assistant to Slavoljub Muslin during the qualifiers but was given the main job after Muslin was ousted from his job. Muslins failure to include some of Serbias best young talents was one of the reasons as the Serbian federation feared losing players like Sergej Milinkovic-Savic to other nations. Krstajic promptly included some of the previously uncapped players in his first squad. Krstajic has also talked about producing an alternative to the 3-4-2-1 formation which worked so well in qualifying and has implemented both 4-3-3 and a 4-2-3-1 in his first three games in charge. It will be interesting to see how the former defender sets the team up in Russia.

Goalkeepers
Marko Dmitrovic, Vladimir Stojkovic, Predrag Rajkovic

Defenders
Branislav Ivanovic, Milos Veljkovic, Aleksandar Kolarov, Antonio Rukavina, Dusko Tosic, Nikola Milenkovic, Milan Rodic, Uros Spajic

Midfielders
Nemanja Matic, Luka Milivojevic, Adem Ljajic, Andrija Zivkovic, Sergej Milinkovic-Savic, Dusan Tadic, Marko Grujic, Filip Kostic, Nemanja Radonjic

Forwards
Aleksandar Mitrovic, Aleksandar Prijovic, Luka Jovic

Krstajics tactics

All through the qualifiers under Muslin, Serbia played a 3-4-2-1 formation. The team defended in a compact 5-4-1 formation and used a positionally-orientated defensive style. The focus was to keep the team as compact as possible and to restrict the opportunity for the opponent to play between their lines. When possession was won they looked to transition quickly from defence into attack through their front three which was often Dusan Tadic and Filip Kostic either side of target man Aleksandar Mitrovic. Plenty of Serbias goals in qualifying came from counter-attacks with this trio involved.

Below is an image of Serbias defensive shape under Muslin. A compact 5-4-1 which restricts the available space between the lines of Serbias defence and midfield. In this scene, the ball is wide on Serbias right which sees the right wing-back push higher to press. The remaining four defenders shuffle across to create an auxiliary back-four and give cover to the pressing wing-back.

In possession, Muslins side altered between a controlled build-up and a more direct approach. The key was to start the build-up from the back-three and the two central midfielders which gave a solid base. The two wing-backs push high and kept the maximum width to create space centrally. Below we see this in practice. The starting positions of the back-three and two midfielders naturally creates triangles and passing angles. These angles helped Serbia play out from the back and move the ball into their attacking players.

Below we see the midfield box which was created by Serbias tw