Uroš Matic

Uroš Matic
Uroš Matić (2017)
Personnel
birthday	May 23, 1990
place of birth	Šabac ,  SFR Yugoslavia
size	184 cm
position	midfield player
Juniors
Years	station
	FK Obrenovac 1905
	FK Jedinstvo Ub
2008-2009	MFK Košice
Men's
Years	station	Games (goals) 1
2008-2010	MFK Košice B
2009-2013	MFK Košice	74 (8)
2013-2014	Benfica Lisbon B	16 (0)
2014-2016	NAC Breda	73 (4)
2015	NAC Breda II	3 (0)
2016	SK Sturm Graz	20 (3)
2017–	FC Copenhagen	24 (4)
2018-2019	→  FK Austria Wien  (loan)	31 (5)
2019–	→  APOEL Nicosia  (loan)	0 (0)
National team
Years	selection	Games (goals)
2009	Serbia U-19	7 (0)
	Serbia U-21	1 (0)
1 Only league games are given. As of May 26, 2019

Uroš Matić ( Serbian - Cyrillic Урош Матић , born May 23, 1990 in Šabac , SFR Yugoslavia ) is a Serbian - Macedonian football player who also has Bulgarian citizenship. The 1.84 m tall midfielder has been playing for Danish first division club FC Copenhagen since January 2017 and is currently on loan to the Cypriot club APOEL Nicosia . After changing associations, Matić has been eligible to play for the Macedonian national football team since 2015 , but has not yet been used for them.

He is the younger brother of the Serbian international Nemanja Matić . Even the father was once active as a football player, but did not make it beyond the Yugoslav second class ( FK Mačva Šabac ).

Club career

Career start at home and move to Slovakia

Uroš Matić was born on May 23, 1990 in the Yugoslav city of Šabac, in what is now western Serbia , and grew up in the village of Vrelo near Ub , where he also began his football career at the age of five. He also spent his initial career as a footballer at youth level of FK Obrenovac 1905 in some kilometers away in Obrenovac . While his older brother at that time belonged to FK Radnički Obrenovac , the larger of the two clubs, Uroš Matić subsequently moved away from the Save to Ub to FK Jedinstvo Ub, around 30 kilometers south . His brother was also active in this from 2004 to 2005 before he made his debut in men's football. Uroš Matić spent a few years in the youth team there and left his home country in 2008 to join the youth department of the Slovak first division club MFK Košice . Here he spent the years 2008 and 2009 alternately in the junior and reserve team, before he made the leap to the professional squad in 2009 and made his professional debut.

His first competitive game in men's football he completed it in the last round of the 2008/09 season , when he came in the 70th minute of play for Lukáš Janič in the 1-1 home draw against 1. FC Tatran Prešov . He spent his first first division season with the team in fourth place in the table. In the 2009/10 season he was mostly involved in the relegation battle with MFK Košice, but this could be averted shortly before the end of the season and the team finished the season on the penultimate place in the table. Over the entire season, the midfielder was only used in three championship games (2 × in August and 1 × in October), but in August 2009 he also made two appearances in the qualifying play-offs for the 2009/10 Europa League against AS Roma . As the Slovak cup winner of the 2008/09 season , MFK Košice had only qualified for the European competition.

In the 2010/11 season it took until the tenth championship round before Matić again advanced to the professional team; until then he was mainly active in the B team. After he was used by interim coach Žarko Đurović as a regular in the tenth round, he was hardly used under his successor Štefan Tarkovič in the next round and was mostly only on the lawn for a few minutes. Only after his first professional league goal, the 4-0 goal, after a hat trick by Marko Milinković against 1. FC Tatran Prešov on November 26, 2010, did he make the leap into the regular formation and was from Tarkovič until the end of the season Midfield of the team at risk of relegation. As in the previous season, the MFK Košice only just managed to stay in the league in 2010/11. By the end of the season, the 1.84 m tall midfielder had made 23 league appearances and three goals.

The 2011/12 season ran as usual; Matić and his team were again involved in the relegation battle, and the signing of the new coach Ladislav Šimčo didn't help. Under Šimčo, Uroš Matić was rarely used over the full game and was no longer considered by the then 44-year-old from the tenth championship round. Only after the expulsion of Šimčos five rounds from the end Matić found back in the team and was used in the last five games of the season by Ján Kozák . By the end of the season he had no hits in 13 championship appearances, but had one assist. It was not until 2012/13 that he found his way back into the regular formation of the football club from Košice under Kozák . In his actual breakthrough season 2012/13, he was used in 32 of the 33 possible league games, scored five goals and put on another seven goals for his teammates. In the end, it was enough for a fifth place in the final ranking of the partly quite tightly staggered table. Also in the Slovak Cup, the team was eliminated only in the semi-finals against ŠK Slovan Bratislava , whereby Matić had made four cup appearances by then, but remained goalless himself.

After constant relegation battle to Portugal

Although he came out of the relegation zone for the first time under successful coach Kozák in the previous season, he left the Slovak club in the summer break of 2013. The success of his brother accompanied him through his own career and so it came about that while his brother was in Portugal Benfica played Lisbon , was even brought to Portugal, where he continued to appear for the B-team of the capital club . He signed a one-year contract with the option of a further five years at the end of the one-year contract period. Under Hélder Cristóvão , he was used as a regular from the beginning of the Portuguese second division season 2013/14 , but soon had to share his midfield position with other teammates and was often only substituted on as a substitute or sat on the bench without being used. By the 26th round of the championship, the Serb had made 16 league appearances, especially in the central and defensive midfield, but was also goalless here. After his last brief assignment in the Portuguese second division on January 18, 2014, he changed clubs again at the end of the month and came to the Netherlands , where his older brother had once played.

Regular player in the Netherlands

While his brother once played for Vitesse Arnhem , Uroš Matić came under at NAC Breda with play in the Eredivisie and already made his championship debut on February 1, 2014 under Nebojša Gudelj when he played in the 2-1 away win over Heracles Almelo from the start and was replaced by Joey Suk from the 77th minute of the game . Under the Bosnian-Serbian coach, he was henceforth active as a regular player, playing through all games until the end of the season and was used in various midfield positions, but mostly in the attacking midfield. With the team he came just around the relegation or the relegation play-offs and ended the season in 15th place in the table, where he had made 14 appearances in the highest Dutch football league. In the 2014/15 season , Matic continued to act as a regular in the midfield of the team from the province of North Brabant and was again used in various midfield positions and again mostly in the more offensive area. For much of the season, the team was involved in the relegation battle and could not break away from the back seats, which also did not succeed under the new coach Eric Hellemons , who took over the office in mid-October 2014.

After Hellemons, after only one win from nine league games, was released at the turn of the year and Robert Maaskant was introduced as the new coach of NAC Breda, the Serb was increasingly given the role of reservist. He was rarely used for the full duration of the game and only had to sit on the bench from the 26th round on, from which he could not really break away under Maaskant. After a one-minute short assignment in round 29, he was used again for the full 90 minutes in the last two games of the season and ended the season with the team in 16th place in the table and thus had to go into the subsequent relegation play-offs. In these, the team managed a total score of 4-0 against VVV-Venlo in the second round, but retired in the third round due to the away goals rule against Roda JC Kerkrade and had to relegate to the Dutch second division . This season he was also used in the reserve team in the Beloften Eredivisie , for which he completed a league game. In the KNVB-Pokal 2014/15 he made it to the second round with NAC Breda, scoring one goal in three appearances and preparing another two.

In the Eerste Divisie 2015/16 he was again unused on the bench in the first three games of the season, but scored a goal in the fourth round in a short game in a 7-0 victory over FC Dordrecht and from then on Maaskant returned to the regular formation introduced, in which reappeared soon afterwards. At the latest after Maaskant left as head coach and Marinus Dijkhuizen was hired at the beginning of October 2015, he had made the leap into the regular team and played in 31 of 36 possible championship games during the season. He scored three goals and put on another six for his teammates. In order to collect match practice, he was used twice in the reserve team, especially at the beginning of the season. In the KNVB Cup 2015/16 , the team was eliminated in the second round against SC Heerenveen . Due to the third place in the final classification, the team took part in the promotion play-offs and was only just eliminated in the third and final round against Willem II Tilburg .

Change to Austria

After his contract, which expired in the summer of 2016, was not extended any further and the club's option for another year was not drawn, he moved to SK Sturm Graz , where he signed a contract with a term until summer 2018 and one option. The enthusiastic and creative central midfield player, who, as already mentioned, can be used universally, should act as a midfield engine and conductor with the Grazers with his experience .

Change to Copenhagen and rental stations

In January 2017 he moved to Denmark for FC Copenhagen , where he received a contract valid until June 2021.

For the 2018/19 season he returned to Austria, where he switched to FK Austria Wien on loan . After the end of the loan, he was for the season 2019/20 to Cyprus to APOEL Nicosia lent.

National team career

Matić gained his first experience in a national team from his home country in the Serbian U-19 national team , in which he was used in numerous international matches in 2009. In addition to friendly international matches against Germany or Austria in the spring of 2009, he represented his home country in July at the U-19 European Championship in Ukraine in 2009 . He was used in all three group games in Serbia and moved into the final round with the team as group winners of group B. In the semifinals there against the age colleagues of the host, however, the Serbs lost 3-1 to the later U-19 European champions. After he had played in an international match of the Serbian U-21 national team over the years , he decided to play for the Macedonian national soccer team in the event of a call-up to an A national team. Thanks to his maternal grandfather, who comes from the mountain village of Volkovija and who came to today's Serbia with his family as a young man, Matić is of Macedonian descent and is therefore eligible to play for both national teams. His mother also has a Macedonian passport; some of his relatives still live in Macedonia today. In the summer of 2015 he was still not eligible to play for Macedonia, but was after the full evaluation later in the year.

Private

Uroš Matić is married to his long-term partner Jelena and with her they have their son Jakov, who was born in May 2014. Because of his grandfather, who came from Bulgaria , he also has a Bulgarian passport.

Web links

Commons : Uroš Matić  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Uroš Matić in the database of weltfussball.de
• Uroš Matić in the database of transfermarkt.de
• Uroš Matić in the soccerway.com database
• Interview with Uroš Matić: I'm thinking of playing for Macedonia (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Uros Matic ruma ao NAC. ( Memento from January 21, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) . Portuguese, accessed June 10, 2016.
2. ↑ ^{a b} Prominent name - Sturm Graz brings Chelsea star's brother. Retrieved June 10, 2016.
3. ↑ FC København henter Uros Matic fck.dk, on December 13, 2016, accessed on December 13, 2016.
4. ↑ Austria borrows Uros Matic from Copenhagen with purchase option fk-austria.at, on May 24, 2018, accessed on May 25, 2018
5. ↑ Καταρχήν συμφωνία δανεισμού με FC Copenhagen για Uroš Matić apoelfc.com.cy, on June 13, 2019, accessed on June 13, 2019
6. ↑ Brat Nemanje Matića postaje makedonski reprezentativac? Serbian, accessed June 10, 2016.
7. ^ Brother of Chelsea's Nemanja Matic set to switch Serbian national team for Macedonia. English, accessed June 10, 2016.
8. ↑ Uros Matic gives update on national team status. English, accessed June 10, 2016.
9. ↑ Storm legionnaire Uros Matic: ÖFB team and Serbia at eye level salzburg.com, on October 6, 2016, accessed on October 6, 2016.