“I'm happy to be able to say that my job is to play soccer,” said 27-year-old Serbian Stefan Lukic, who scored the only goal of the game for the Chattanooga Red Wolves (USL League 1) in the second leg of the Open Cup. He spoke a few days later. rounder against Apoteos FC, a talented amateur team based in Georgia.
“My job is to play the game I love,” he added, a whisper of disbelief in his voice.
Lukic sounds like a lot of hard workers who struggle in the lower leagues. Smell the big thing. And in a way, so is he. But nine years ago, Lukic was the next big thing in the European game. He captained the vaunted Partizan Belgrade youth organization for nine years, but his move to Everton in the English Premier League was just the beginning.
So why is Lukic playing at the CHI Memorial Stadium in East Ridge, Tennessee, rather than Goodison Park or other European dream theaters like the Bernabéu or Old Trafford? How did he make it to the third tier of American professional soccer, and why does it sound like he's having the best time of his life?
when things go wrong
“I was a kid, so things didn't work out for me,” Lukic, speaking slowly but always with enthusiasm, admitted to usopencup.com. “I had a contract to go to Everton.” [that fell through], I had some bad luck and so many things went wrong. It just didn't work out. ”
It is difficult to overstate the prospects of the young Lukic, who was born in Surjam, Serbia, in the late 1990s, in the embers of the dying Yugoslav wars. He was discovered early on by scouts from the Partisan youth academy, the Pan-Balkan Superior Talent Factory. He moved away from his family and into an apartment with other promising young people he had never met before, all this while he was still only 11 years old.
He ate, slept and played in the big city of Belgrade. He was trained for the top stage and had every eye on the future superstar. “It wasn't just the best young players from Serbia, it was players from all over the region,” Lukic recalled. “Croatia, Bosnia, Montenegro and the entire Balkans.”
Lukic spent nine of his 11 years there as captain of the club's various age groups. However, when he arrived at the age of 17 to sign with a top team in the Serbian Superliga, he received no offers. He will have to find his fortune abroad. That appears to have been a minor difficulty considering the high-profile scouting reports he received.
However, initially the contract with Everton fell through. After that, he had a falling out with his agent. Then a far more conventional story unfolded than the shooting stars of Juventus' Dusan Vlahovic and former Fulham ace Aleksandar Mitrović (Partizan's academy mate).
“It was frustrating. I was young, experienced and not very smart,” admitted Lukic, who watched eight of his Partizan contemporaries play for Serbia at the FIFA World Cup. “I was 17 years old and things weren't working out for me, so I chose a different path.
“I went to the United States,” he said.
He landed in Bartlesville, Oklahoma. We are in the middle of a vast and unfamiliar country. A friend of his played college soccer there. When Oklahoma Wesleyan Eagles head coach Jamie Peterson learned that a player of Lukic's pedigree and talent was attending the school, he quickly offered him a full scholarship.
University stage instead of football cathedral
So instead of the Old Continent's football cathedral or the Champions League, Lukic played college baseball at the OKWU Soccer Complex against the likes of Missouri Valley College, Governors State and Central Methodist. “that [the transition] It was difficult at first. The level of play in college was, well, different,” Lukic said. Despite his natural urge for optimism, he admits he's “ready to quit the game.” To end it all at this stage of his college career.
It's no wonder Lukic was named an NAIA first-team All-American in all four years he played at Wesleyan. He started 38 games for the Eagles, had 24 goals and 43 assists, and graduated in 2021 with a degree in marketing. And despite a moment of hesitation, Lukic “started to love it.” His saving grace came when he met his future wife (who is currently pregnant with his second child) in Oklahoma.
And suddenly, long removed from his days as a standout player at Partizan Academy, the old pull toward a possible professional career returned. “It takes me away from the game,” he said. “It didn't feel right.” But this time it's not Everton or the Premier League. Far from it.
