Your bluffer's guide to the World Cup: Serbia 🇷🇸 | OneFootball

In the latest of this series ahead of the World Cup in Russia, here is all you need to know about Serbia.

With a whole host of players across Europe’s best leagues, maybe they could surprise a few people this summer.

The key player is … Nemanja Matić

At 29, Matić is no spring chicken but having missed out on a place in the squad for the 2010 tournament, this will be the Manchester United man’s first World Cup.

The midfielder will be his team’s anchor Russia and a player who is relied upon to break up play and launch counter-attacks by feeding the likes of Dušan Tadić and Adem Ljajić.

If Matić has a good World Cup, anything is possible for the Serbs.

The young player to watch out for is … Sergej Milinković-Savić

The Lazio midfielder is another one who will be making his World Cup debut this summer and remarkably, the player who is reportedly valued at north of €100m in the transfer market has so far been capped just twice for his country at senior level.

Former Serbia coach Slavoljub Muslin achieved qualification for Russia 2018 but lost his job due to his reluctance to give young players a chance.

But 23-year-old Milinković-Savić is regarded as the symbol of the future of Serbian football and if he carries his impressive Serie A form into the World Cup, that €100m price-tag might start to seem a lot less ludicrous.

I would like a fun fact about the coach. What can you tell me?

Former defender Mladen Krstajić will take charge of the Serbian team this summer despite the fact he has no previous coaching experience.

But he does have lots of experience in a variety of other industries, namely agriculture, real estate and hospitality. In fact, he even owns a motel and a distillery back in his homeland and once revealed in an interview with Sportski Žurnal the lengths to which he is willing to go to get his hands dirty.

“I’m not embarrassed to do anything, and I never find it difficult to do things that are good for my family,” he said.

“I pay my taxes; I bring money into our laboured country. I can put on a tie and a suit when needed, but I also like to sit on a bottle crate after a hard day’s work and share a beer with my tractor men.”

If I were to get a line of the national anthem tattooed onto my back, what should I go for?

Probably “на свак дичан славан рад” which roughly translates as “Teach love that will not fail”

Whitney Houston-esque.

Summarise this team for me in one emoji, please

🐺

Who will make their best XI in Russia?

And finally, tell me how the team will perform in Russia?

Serbia qualified for the tournament with consummate ease, but things are likely to be a little more complicated over in Russia.

The first game, against Costa Rica, will be hugely important. A victory combined with a win for Brazil over Switzerland will leave them in good shape to qualify, but a defeat could spell trouble.

Getting out of their group will be seen as an achievement in itself, should they pull it off. In both 2010 and 2006 (as Serbia and Montenegro) they fell at the first hurdle, while the last time they made it past the group stage was in 1998, when the country was still part of Yugoslavia.