SUPER SLAVS

MICHAEL SPOOR WAXES LYRICAL ABOUT TWO BALKAN MAVERICKS - DRAGAN STOJKOVIC AND DEJAN SAVICEVIC - WHO COULD TAKE YOUR BREATH AWAY...

- MICHAEL SPOOR

THIRTEEN minutes remain in a World Cup second round tie with Yugoslavia locked goalless against the Spanish in the searing heat of the Bentegodi Stadium in Verona.

The ball is fed to Vujovic on the left wing. He crosses and Katanec heads on to an unmarked Dragan Stojkovic eight yards from goal. The crowd expects him to shoot but he kills the ball effortlessly, and the nearest defender’s tackle is fruitless. Time appears to stand still until Stojkovic coolly places the ball into the bottom corner. It’s one of the best goals of Italia ‘90.

Yugoslavia go on to win 2-1 in extra-time thanks to a 20-yard Stojkovic free-kick and one of the potential star players of the tournament has finally arrived.

The Slavs were eventually eliminated at the quarterfinal stage at the hands of shootout specialists Argentina, having played the greater part of two hours with ten men after Sabanadzovic’s first-half dismissal.

Stojkovic, ably assisted by latest discovery Robert Prosinecki and the veteran Safet Susic, totally upstaged Maradona and his defending world champions without finding a winner.

Of the two number tens on view, both of whom missed from 12 yards in the shootout, surely Stojkovic would be the star in four years’ time - Maradona’s crown was visibly slipping.

Born in Nis, Stojkovic moved from local club Radnicki to Red Star Belgrade in 1986 for a fee of four floodlights!

He soon became Red Star's playmaker - one of great technique and a consummate free-kick exponent. He was the club’s youngest captain for over two decades.

Something was obviously stirring at Red Star Belgrade - something that was to peak in Bari, Italy, in May 1991.

Two years earlier, in the 1988-89 European Cup second round, Red Star had pushed eventual winners and all-round European powerhouses at the time, AC Milan, to the limit.