Matić Nemanja

Born on August 1, 1988 in Vrelo, near Ub.

He grew up in Radnički from Obrenovac, and in his pioneer days he played for Kolubara from Lazarevac and Jedinstvo Ub. In the younger categories, he played for Partizan and Crvena zvezda. He started his senior career in Kolubara, and after only six months he went to Slovakia, to the ranks of Košice. In the summer transfer window in 2009, he signed a four-year contract with Chelsea. The compensation to Košice amounted to around 1.5 million pounds.

In the 2010-11 season, he went on loan to the Dutch Vitesse, where he drew attention to himself with good games.

In the summer transfer window of 2011, he was transferred from Chelsea to Benfica, Portugal, as part of the transfer of David Luiz to “Stamford Bridge”.

In the Benfica jersey, he grew into one of the elite midfielders on the continent, he was also the player of the season in Portugal, the tragic vice-champion of the country, the finalist of the Europa League and the national cup, and the goal he scored in the derby match against Porto. Neymarov, in the selection for the FIFA award “Ferenc Puskas”.

In January 2014, he put on the Chelsea jersey again, as he signed a five-and-a-half-year contract with the London “blues”, and his transfer from Benfica cost the team from “Stamford Bridge” 21 million pounds. Although literally half of Europe was interested in Matic, he decided to return to the club “Stamford Bridge” exclusively because of Jose Mourinho, who insisted on bringing in a Serbian midfielder.

In the 2014-15 season, he won the English title and the League Cup with Chelsea, and he himself was chosen as the ideal team for the Premier League season.

In the 2016-17 season, he won the English title once again, and then he accepted the invitation of Jose Mourinho and signed a three-year contract with Manchester United, with the option to extend for another year.

For this transfer, the “red devils” paid Chelsea 40 million pounds (44.7 million euros), making him the most expensive Serbian footballer ever, surpassing Nikola Maksimovic, who moved from Turin to Napoli for 25 million euros in the summer transfer window in 2016. .

Representation

Matic was a completely unknown player in Serbia until Vladimir Vermezovic, at that time the coach of the Slovak Spartak from Trnava, recommended him and Marko Milinkovic to the then selector of the young national team, Slobodan Krcmarevic. Both of these players got a chance to make their debut for the young team on October 11, 2008 in the match against Denmark.

He participated with the young national team in the European Championship in 2009. He was injured in the first game against Italy, after 85 minutes spent on the field. After that injury, he had to have foot surgery.

He played five games for the young Serbian national football team and scored two goals.

He made his debut for the best selection of Serbia on December 14, 2008 in a friendly match against Poland (0: 1) in Antalya.

In November 2012, before the gathering of the Serbian national team for the friendly match against Chile, he said that he would not play for the national team as long as Siniša Mihajlović was on the bench of the “eagles”. He did not like the fact that Mihajlović called him, but did not put him in the team, so out of anger and disappointment, he told the coach not to invite him anymore.

In September 2013, there was a reconciliation with the national team coach, Siniša Mihajlović, with whom he had been in conflict for the previous year, but before the match with Croatia all problems were ironed out and Matić is again a member of the national team and one of the future players . However, the reconciliation arrived too late for the “Eagles” to see Brazil.

Participant of the 2018 World Cup in Russia.

Championship matches in the clubs where he played: