Football goalkeeper Vladan Kovacevic to play for Serbia

BELGRADE - Vladan Kovacevic, one of the best goalkeepers of the Polish football league, has accepted a call-up from Serbia head coach Dragan Stojkovic with great pleasure and is due to join the Serbia national team soon, the Football Association of Serbia announced in a statement on Thursday.

The Banjaluka-born Kovacevic, 24, has previously played for the Bosnia and Herzegovina U21 team.

After establishing himself as a regular at Polish league leaders Rakow, Kovacevic has been on Serbia sporting director Stevan Stojanovic's and Stojkovic's radar for some time now.

If all the paperwork with FIFA is sorted out in time, Kovacevic is expected to be available to play for Serbia as early as this month, in the EURO 2024 qualifiers against Lithuania in Belgrade and Montenegro in Podgorica.

A few days ago, former Germany U21 international Lazar Samardzic decided to play for Serbia in the future.

Since Stojkovic's and Stojanovic's advent in March 2021, the national team has also been joined by Red Star forward Stefan Mitrovic, whose other option was Canada, Almeria defender Srdjan Babic, who also has Bosnia and Herzegovina citizenship, and Belgian-born goalkeeper Mile Svilar, who plays for Roma.