'From the depths of Belgrade, to the heights of the World Cup'

[Crayth]

'From the depths of Belgrade, to the heights of the World Cup'

NOTE TO READERS: I KNOW I HAVE LOTS OF STORIES BUT DUE TO NOT HAVING FM11 TILL XMAS, I AM GOING TO PLAY THIS SAVE UNTIL I GET IT. THANKYOU FOR FOLLOWING, MUCH LOVE, TYKEYO.
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Vladan Lukic sat still, gaze firmly fixed on the wall. The stentch of sweat intoxicated his throat but he moved nowhere. How did it come to this? The forty-year-old ex footballer Vladan Lukic was travelling on a train through the depths of inner Serbia to watch his former team play. He was travelling alone, usually his son would come along to watch as well but he had began to grow up and was out with his friends locally. Vladan sat silent. The rest of the carriage was silent as well, one elderly looking man lay across three seats on the opposite side of the train and looked dead at first glance but upon deciding to inspect him Lukic was scared off as he groaned out loud rolling onto his side and revealing an empty bottle of 40% russian Vodka. The train began to come to a shuddering hault and Vladan pulled himself to his feet, he went to make his way off the train when someone held him back. He jolted, unexpectedly and swung himself round to see a man who he had not seen on the carriage for the whole of the train journey. The man offered his hand to Vladan.

'My name is Senad Vucinivic. It's your lucky day, my boy."

Vladan was confused, but went along with it walking with him new accomplice, Senad just so happened to have a spare box-seat and offered Lukic it for free. Lukic happily obliged and took his seat in the box at Serbia's most wonderful stadium. After a while of general chit-chat, Senad finally asked.

"So how would you feel if I offered you a way back into football."

Vladan's face lit-up but realising who he was in the company of, he hid his joy and instead nodded. As they grew further into the conversation Vladan get less and less enthusiastic realising he has never had any coaching experience before in his life, yes he was an ex-footballer but he had never tried anything like this before and after a while of Senad talking to him about general stuff he finally cut to the chase.

"I have been sent from the Serbian FA to offer you the job as Head Coach of the Serbian National Team."

The dream had come true and Lukic settled back into his leather seat with a hot cup of Belgian coffee ready to watch his team, as the whistle blew.

...
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---------- Post added at 01:09 AM ---------- Previous post was yesterday at 07:04 PM ----------

ASSISTANT MANAGER.
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I sat in my shiny new office behind a large wooden desk, the office was fairly big.. 10x10 metres I would say. Among the line of stationary and writing uttensials on my desk was a brand new Apple Mac and a new iPhone. No-one else from the Serbian FA worked in my office, just myself in the main building in the middle of Belgrade. However, some of my coaches and staff were stationed around this area. However, my first task since becoming Serbian manager was deciding on my new Assistant Manager, I had a perfect idea of who I wanted but whether they were ready would be a completely different story. My eyes wattered in anticipation as I scrolled down the page of candidates, I saw 'his' name, clicking on it.

"That's the guy.."

A new window popped open displaying all the current facts on the man in question. Current Assistant Manager at Red Star Belgrade Vladan Milojevics' career has spanned a fantastic 18 years, player and coach, playing for Panithinikos at the height of his fame. I sat back in my chair, stroking my chin and rocking side to side on my new office leather chair. I read across his description as a youth coach and then looked at his contact information. I saw his mobile number, picking up my iPhone I punched in the digits and awaited the ring, it cut straight off.

"Wrong number." I grimaced.

Shaking my head I clicked onto his email address and typed up a quick email requesting him to come and visit me at the Serbian FA headquarters urgently, a reply pinged back straight away.. it simply said.

"On my way.."

...

I sat back in anticipation, me and Vladan had gone years back, we were friends when I was playing for Red Star. I couldn't wait to work alongside him for the first time, we had the potential to become the best partnership ever, I already knew I was going to offer him the job.. I think he knew aswell, it was whether he accepted it or not. After this, I think I'm going to take a plane journey to Milan to talk to my captain Dejan Stankovic and then off to England to meet my star central back Nemanja Vidic, yeah.. that'll do me till August and I compete in my first game as manager.

I had lost track of time in my train of thought and through the door stepped Vladan Milojevic. I got to my feet, offering my hand, he took it in mutual respect. He both nodded to each other. He smiled and I returned the favour, we both sat down, me one side of the desk, himself, the other.

"Good to see you again, Mr. Lukíc." He grinned.

For a while, we spoke about the old times and some of the crazy Serbian parties we had been to in our day and about the Yugoslavian National Team and about the current state of Football and how Red Star were doing so far this season but after a while we got down to business and instead of wasting both of our times, I put a contract down on the with a pen and slid it across to him. He looked at me inquisitively. I looked at him, I smiled.

"Don't you want the job then?"

He looked at me astonished, without wasting another split second he snatched the pen off the contract and scribbled down his signature in Serbian I think, even me, a Serbian born man, couldn't understand his signature. He slammed the pen of the desk and smiled at me..

Perhaps the greatest managing team in the country, had been born.. lets hope so.


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[matty1702]

Well done m8 really enjoying so far nd gud
look

 

[Crayth]

Well done m8 really enjoying so far nd gud
look

Cheers mate, much appreciated, updates are imminent, also the first match against South Africa and current tactics.

---------- Post added at 04:27 AM ---------- Previous post was at 03:25 AM ----------

BACK TO BUSINESS

After reuniting with my new assistant manager, I got straight back down to business. Grabbed my suitcase excitedly as I got out of the airport in Milan. A man with a black stripped suit on and a tophot greeted me at the gate he held up a bit of card on a stick.

"Lukíc
Serbian FA"

I smiled to myself and walked over and greeted 'Pepe'. He showed me to the taxi and to my suprise he reveiled a stretch limo, feeling quite good about myself in this moment in time I strutted into the vehical as slow as a could to be seen by as many people as possible. When getting into the Limo, conversation was hard due to my lack of speaking italian and the italian's lack of speaking Serbian which was good due to his annoying accent. Getting out of the car, my captain Dejan Stankovic greeted me, extending his arm. He grinned to me before turning and asking me to follow. We sat and chatted in a locale café, okay not as glamerous as the limo, but it was undercover. I told him about the plans I had for the team, what tactics and formation and choice of personal, asking for his general opinion, due to him being quite close friends with quite a few of the players there. I also told him he shall remain captain as long as he wants it and he's in the first team. Overall, a good day in Milan, brought some new trousers, so it's all good.

Fast forward to 8th August 2009.

"It's time to pick your squad Lukíc."

I wake up from my slight daydream and I recognise the face of Vladan. He shakes me tell I awake and explains to me we've got a game soon against South Africa and we are to pick a team. I get the idea of what he's saying and quickly look into my scout reports, I look across the name's reading who's definitely in the squad.

"Stankovic, Krasic has been performing, Nikola Zigic, Utd man Nemanja Vidic, Ahh Ivanovic and Kolarov!"

Happy I'd picked a decent squad I submitted my form. After doing so - Vladan turned around to me and we discussed the current formation and how about were going to play.

"I've got an idea of who we should start and how we're going to play.."

I was suprised by his enthusiasm, he'd only been here a matter of weeks. He looked eager and I happily obliged to read his first XI, he tooked me through some of his tactics and special roles before he finally passed me a sheet of paper describing what he's on about, what a waste of time, he needs to come of the Vodka.

"Disljenkovic is goal
Rajkovic - Vidic - Ivanovic - Kolarov back four.
Milijas - Stankovic -Ergic in the middle
Krasic Jovanovic
and Zigic on his own upfront."

Basically the tactic he had deviced was using quick wingers with a good final ball to search for the towering height and heading skill of Nikola Zigic of Birmingham. He also believed that Stankovic would be bombing forward, Ergic would be box to box with Milijas picking passes, which was a great idea, a solid back four, probably the best possible and a decent keeper in Disljenkovic, however I had made sure two keepers were being watched by scouts.

I liked Vladan's idea and with his coaching experience I went with him on this one and decided I'd see how it worked, I was impressed on paper but would the real thing be the real deal?

...
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---------- Post added at 06:24 AM ---------- Previous post was at 04:27 AM ----------

FIRST GAME AGAINST JAPS

I sat back in my leather chair sipping a strong russian Vodka, watching the plasma we had designed for our office, it sits on the whole by the Serbian flag. We watch the highlighbts of the match previously in the night. I am sitting alongside assistant manager Vladan Milojevic who is frantically scribbling down meaningless notes. I glance across at his unorganised drawings of formations and tactics and sigh to myself smiling a bit.

We were good in the first game against South Africa, the boys really impressed me - I never knew we were that good. Despite being nervous as the whistle blew, I was excited aswell. Midway through the first half influential captain Stankovic darted through the midfield, laying it into the feet of striker Zigic, who half turned and slid in the arriving unmarked Ergic who controlled and blasted home from 8 yards out. The bench leaped into joy, and the few travelling fans celebrated, I saw Vladan punch the air in excitement. I remained casual.

"Nice.."

I thought smiling to myself. Fast forward a mir ten minutes or so, my magician of a right-winger danced down the right hand side and delivered a tantilising ball and the tall frame of Birmingham's striker Nikola Zigic towered above the two flailing South African defenders and put us 2 - 0 up.

"Nicer.."

Unfortunately, Nikola slightly injured his neck coliding with a centre half and came over, however this gave me the oppurtunity to put Marko Pantellic on, an experienced striker from Ajax. He isn't prolific for his country but today demonstrated he knows where the goal is when Krasic again danced down the right hand side and gave it him on a plate to wrap up a comfortable 3 - 0 victory away from home, perhaps only 12,000 odd turned up but still a good performance from the boys.

Pundits went onto talk about how I am playing my game and the way they like my style, they weren't too harsh on me apart from playing teams players longer than asked for, but I wasn't bothered. I am country over club every day of the week. However, they then began talking about an article written in the national paper. "Sportski žurnal", the author was called Senad Vukadinovic. He was badmouthing my plug and play tactics and criticising the choice of Vladan as Assistant Manager when Franco Baldini is avaialble.

"Pfft."

I snorted in disgust. Already am I being subdued to criticism - and I won the god-**** game. I turned to Vladan who felt the same way but wasn't too fussed by the article, he just suggested you're always going to have people in the media who must not like you and anything you do he portrays as bad, I agree'd and got back to work - had I just met my first enemy in this job?

...
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[Vanjagl]

Hahaha, nice, going to follow this

 

[Crayth]

SAN MARINO + FRANCE + STILL MORE CRITICISM

I flicked over the page to view Senad Vukodinovics' column in the Sporski Zunal and to my disarray, we suffered yet again more criticism, I groaned inside slightly, shaking my head. Vladan noticed this, raising his eyebrow inquisitively, he walked from one sid eof the room to the other and joined my reading the authors column. He also groaned, nothing but negatively splashed across the Sportski Zurnal's pages.

"His negative approach the game frustrated me and will frustrate other Sebian's globally."

******** up the paper I threw it against the ball and it rebounded into the small bin in the corner of the office. I put my face in my hands and thought for a minute, Vladan remained calm. We had won afterall, it was the day after the 2 - 0 victory against San Marino and me and Vladan were sitting watching clips of it to get an idea of where were going. The game was made alot easier, early, as my captain Dejan Stankovic stormed through an open midfield and thumped one home from 16 yards past the sprawling San Marino keeper, at half time we decided to rest our big centre forward Nikola Zigic and on came Pantellic who again looked sharp, the last highlight was Branislav Ivanovic floated one in to the far past and a towering header from Pantellic gave him a reason to be given his chance in the first team.

"Pantellic has been unstoppable Lukíc, perhaps we drop Nikola and give Pantellic a start?"

Vladan asked me this extremely calmly, in any other circumstances I would change the team around but just three or four days away from our eighth game in the World Cup Qualifiers, I didn't want to take the risk of changing the team around especially when we were up against the French. I shook my head in disagreement.

"I'm not about to take that risk Vladan..If it doesn't pay off, Vukodinovic will crucify us."

Vladan nodded in agreement and we both settled back into selecting the tweaks to tactics etc over a bottle of Vodka before deciding to call it a day and ordering a taxi home at around 11:46pm.

...

Picking up my bags I leapt onto the coach, Vladan followed behind me. The players were already sat on the coach, laughing, joking and just generally messing around. We were ready to take the short journey from the Serbian FA headquarters to Serbian's National Stadium in Belgrade. It was a ten-twenty minute journey at max but we needed to bond as a team. The driver began driving, and we were on our way. The coach journey wasn't too bad, we mainly just laughed at Dejan Stankovics' poor choice of rap/hip-hop for the music.

We got there a few hours before kick off and my nerves were beginning to set in, we always had a strong back four but we would have enough in the attacking area? We settled down at the magnificent stadium, by now fans were beginning to pour through the doors, an estimated 45,000 were supposed to pack out the stadium and that just added to my nerves. The day had been a blur, it felt like 10 minutes rather than 10 hours, my Assistant Manager reassured me as we settled back into our seats in the dugout, my stressing was cut short by the whistle...

"Good Luck..."

I said to myself..


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---------- Post added at 06:02 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:01 PM ----------

Hahaha, nice, going to follow this

Cheers for the comment man, update's are imminent

 

[swaggasaur]

Amazing story Tykeyo, I'll be following.

 

[Crayth]

"AND ITS JOVANOVIC!!!! SERBIA EDGE INFRONT HERE AGAINST GIANTS FRANCE!!"

We had done it, together as a team we had defeated France in our own backyard and the fans were absolutely electric. We defeated a strong French side and my first real challenge as Serbian Manager I had passed. We hadn't been outplayed either, we had our fair share of chances to add to the tally but 1 - 0 was a good enough victory for me, our team, our FA and importantly the public of Serbia however my arch nemesis in the Serbian media took a different view on the match. He claimed we had been outplayed and that we should have converted the chances we had to make sure it wasn't on a knife-edge. As I read along the article, I groaned again.. nothing seemed to please this man.

"Relax.."

Vladan walked into the room with a calm tone of voice, I calmed down straight away. I realised I was doing the job the way I wanted to and at the moment it was getting results and aslong as I'm getting results that all I really care about, I think we are doing well and Vladan reassured me, however he slammed a folder full of scout reports on my desk, I thought I loved this but I sighed..

"More?.."

...
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[matty1702]

well done m8 excellent result keep it up

 

[swaggasaur]

Miloš Lukić

I picked up the crisp copy of the newspaper whilst sitting down infront of my television, scanning the newspaper. I overheard the TV; “That's in, Jovanovic scores!”, I developed a grin whilst leaning back on the couch. “My brother.” I muttered to myself, standing up and going to the kitchen, while thinking that I could of ended up like my brother if it wasn't for my shock injury during my trial for Red Star Belgrade. I punched a box of football merchandise in pure anger and frustration, I lost it all due to trying to hard to start a company for distributing football merchandise but it failed. I rushed over to the fridge, grasping onto a bottle of cheap, mediocre vodka I filled the glass with a wealthy fraction. I proceeded back to my lounge, as I sat down the phone started emitting the loud and obnoxious ringtone. While searching for it, I dropped my glass of vodka against the floor “Gahh! F--..” I picked up the cellphone. “Hello?! - What is it?”, “Mr. Lukic, I've got an offer for you. How would you like to take over the Serbian U21s?”. The frustration and built-up hatred inside me dissipated.


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[Crayth]

REUNITED

It was a horrific night in the centre of Belgrade and here I sat in a pub with a few of the hardcore alchoholics - watching the U21's batter the Irish when I noticed something extremely odd, I recognised the manager's face but it didn't click. I familiarised the face with a family member, but it seems the Vodka had gotten to me. After a while of hard thinking I grabbed a picture of my brother from my mind, I hadn't seen him in years, and here he was on TV managing MY U21's, was this real or had the booze really got to me? Usually after half a bottle of Vodka, I felt tipsy but the face looked real.. I still couldn't believe myself, so instead I shrugged a tall dark-haired Russian man with three teeeth missing..

"Wh-, Who.. *hiccup* Who's tha' manager then bud-buddy?"

Great, I sniggered. I had just made a complete **** of myself infront of this massive Russian. He gave me a dirty look for a few seconds before blubbering some random words, so I asked the bartender. It seem's my revalations were correct, standing on screen was my very own brother, Milós Lukíc, the man who abandoned the game for the merchandising industry. A cab driver came in, apparently the Russian guy wasn't Russian at all, he was Serbian, but I was too ****** to understand him. The cab driver took me into his car and began driving me home, I blacked out on the back-seat.

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...
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[swaggasaur]

THOSE IRISH..

I walked out of the tunnel, a old feeling emerged inside of me; I felt at home. I sat down in the dug-out, and then had to quickly stand up seeing Stevanovic blasting it from 25 yards; a sublime finish. I observed my surrondings, the ambience around me was making my confidence obvious. Later into the game, Milos Zivanovic shown me what he capable of when he intercepted the defender to just add the finishing touch to make us 2-0 ahead.

As the whistle went for half-time, I thought I could get more from the boys. “Great result so far, keep up the display and we'll win this. No doubt!”, I grimaced as we walked back into the sunlight and the whistle blown again. Ireland started to peal a bit of pressure onto us, but our side shown strong and managed to clip a final one in by Perovic. I was delighted with what the lads have shown me to be capable of, I hope to see more strong results.
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[Eurynomos]

nice.

 

[Vanjagl]

well done, keep up... )

 

[Vanjagl]

Bump XD
Tykeyo where are you man ?