National coach Radomir Antic’s natural orientation is attacking football and Serbia play with two wingers – Krasic right and Jovanovic left – and two strikers, Pantelic and Zigic. They also play without a classic holding player, with central midfielders Stankovic and Milijas preferring to share the roles of defensive midfielder and playmaker.
When set up like this, Antic’s side likes to have plenty of possession and take the initiative with their passing game. However, when things aren’t going so well, they have the option to bypass the midfield with long balls to target man Zigic, who is 6ft 7½in. They are also able to launch quick counter-attacks, mainly via the fast and technically excellent wingers Krasic and Jovanovic.
Very solid
Defensively, with Ivanovic and especially Vidic as key players, Serbia are very solid. They defend zonally at set-pieces and seem to have this down to a fine art – as demonstrated by the fact that they conceded just one goal from a dead-ball situation during their qualifying games.
They are, however, extremely dangerous in the reverse situation, with eight of their 22 goals in the qualifiers coming from free-kicks and corners.
Goalkeeper Stojkovic is one possible weak link, while Krasic and Jovanovic can give the ball away too cheaply.
Team 4-4-2
Stojkovic; Ivanovic, Vidic, Lukovic (Dragutinovic), Kolarov; Krasic, Stankovic, Milijas, Jovanovic; Pantelic, Zigic.
