Milan Ristic knew what to do when it seemed Dusan Vlahovic could be about to slip through the cracks. The striker was 14 years old but his gifts were legendary on Serbia’s youth football scene and, increasingly, well beyond. Partizan Belgrade had been trying to sign him upon his graduation from Altina Zemun, a local academy, but could not reach a deal with the player’s family.
Next, Vlahovic had been taken to nearby OFK, where a brief spell ended in disagreement. Shortly afterwards Ristic, a youth coach at Partizan, heard Vlahovic had been spotted kicking a ball around alone at his local stadium. The boy needed to play, not for his talent to be squandered while adults wrangled around him. Ristic jumped straight in the car with his colleague, the influential talent developer Dusan Trbojevic, and drove fast.
