'I went everywhere but my epiphany was in England'

New coach Veljko Paunovic still recalls lessons he learned at Reading as Serbia battle to qualify for World Cup

- Sid Lowe

Veljko Paunovic’s right hand moves in a wide, smooth arc: up, around and down. “This tends to happen to me a lot,” he says, eyes following his finger as it traces a curve.

It is his first day as Serbia’s coach and he is waiting for his players to arrive, entrusted with an “urgent mission” that brings him back again, all the way to when he was a boy. “I tend to close circles, and this could be another. There’s a connection there: my career outside the country, going to Spain, round the world, then returning. And this first game, the link to the legacy left by my dad, to what I inherited from him.”

Growing up, there were three games he recalls his father talking about most, matches that resonate in his mind. Blagoje Paunovic, a defender who played 39 times for Yugoslavia and became a coach, told his son about being invited to play in Pelé’s farewell at the Maracanã in 1971 (“He said people saw Yugoslavia as Europe’s Brazilians”), the European Championship final against Italy in 1968 and the game that took them there, against the world champions.

That day in Florence, Blagoje’s Yugoslavia beat England; tonight at Wembley, Veljko begins against the same country.

“That win had huge repercussions,” Paunovic says. “My dad talked a lot about Bobby Moore, how imposing he was. He talked about that generation: their physical presence, their ability to intimidate.

“They believed they were champions; there was this footballing aristocracy about everything they did. They felt strong, they had an arrogance, in a good sense. This generation now is a superpower that has everything: a very modern team, with depth and variety. They’ve scored 18, conceded none. They made a statement in Serbia.”