A legendary former Serbian frontman is backing a fellow countryman to make a positive impact in Spain following a high-profile summer transfer
Savo Milosevic has said Real Madrid recruit Luka Jovic is a “goal machine” every big club in the world needs, and he believes the striker will be afforded time to settle at the Santiago Bernabeu.
Jovic is preparing for his first season with La Liga giants Madrid following his €70 million (£62m/$79m) arrival from Bundesliga outfit Eintracht Frankfurt.
The 21-year-old caught the attention of Europe’s biggest teams after scoring 27 goals in all competitions to help Eintracht reach the Europa League semi-finals last term.
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Jovic made his pre-season bow for Madrid in the 3-1 International Champions Cup loss to Bayern Munich on Saturday and Serbian great Milosevic hailed the former Red Star Belgrade sensation.
“[It’s] definitely not going to get bigger than this,” Milosevic – now head coach of Partizan Belgrade – told Omnisport. “It’s going to be tough for Luka, it will be difficult, but he possesses such a great quality of scoring goals. He is a goal machine.
“It’s a big club [where] there is a lot of pressure and it’s important how he is starts. He is still young but psychologically, if he can handle the pressure of a big club, things will be good for him.
“He is a player that every big club in the world needs. Those players with a capacity to score 25-30 goals a season, there isn’t many of them. He is definitely one of them.”
Milosevic added: “I believe they will be a little bit patient with him because of his age, but not too much, Madrid are a big club and they won’t wait a long time.
“Luka scored 25-30 goals last season and I believe Madrid are bigger with better potential. Madrid will create chances and if Luka starts well and collects confidence from the beginning, things could go in the right direction immediately.”
Jovic joined his new team-mates following the European Under-21 Championship, where Serbia struggled in Italy.
Headlined by Jovic, Benfica’s Andrija Zivkovic, Eintracht recruit Dejan Joveljic and Marseille winger Nemanja Radonjic, Serbia bowed out in the group stage after three losses – including a humiliating 6-1 defeat to Germany.
It raised further questions about the state of Serbian football, despite an array of technically gifted players in the Balkan country, who won the 2015 U-20 World Cup in New Zealand.
“It’s very difficult to answer in one response, I need two days to explain everything. In the process of making the football players at 10-18 years of age, we are far behind big countries,” Milosevic added. “We need to improve in all aspects, physically especially, sports medicine – those things are very important.
“Tactically and technically, we need to improve our process. Our system is too old. People working in the system, they don’t understand what it is needed in modern football.
“So, we are behind and it’s exactly what you see when you see our teams, we have talented players but many things missing.”