Andrija Maksimovic, who is known as the ‘Serbian Messi’, has vowed to show he is “better” than FC … [+] Barcelona star Lamine Yamal when his team Red Star Belgrade hosts the Catalans in the Champions League on Wednesday.
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Andrija Maksimovic, who is known as the ‘Serbian [Lionel] Messi’, has vowed to show he is “better” than FC Barcelona star Lamine Yamal when his team Red Star Belgrade hosts the Catalans in the Champions League on Wednesday.
Like Lamine in Spain and beyond, Maksimovic is often compared to Messi in his homeland and acknowledged the eight-time Ballon d’Or winner’s influence during a prematch press conference in Belgrade on Tuesday afternoon.
As Lamine often does, however, he tried to brush aside comparisons and said that though “Messi is my idol … I would like to be remembered as Andrija Maksimovic”.
Maksimovic was also born in 2007 and is therefore 17 of age like Barca right winger Lamine, who last week won France Football’s Kopa Trophy for the best male soccer player under the age of 21.
He insisted that he is “not nervous”, and “happy to play against a big team like Barcelona”.
And while he said that Lamine is “a great player”, who he’s already met in the past, a cocky Maksimovic promised that “I’ll go out on the pitch to show that I’m better than him”.
“There is also [Pau] Cubarsi. They’re both my age. I hope we can change shirts when the game is over,” Maksimovic further added.
As for Red Star’s manager Vladan Milojevic, he is aware that in Barca his men will face one of the best in-form teams in Europe.
“Barcelona hardly make any mistakes, but we will do everything possible to counter their game,” Milojevic said in his own press conference.
“We play against the best team in Europe. They are a team that is playing at the highest level in all phases of the game. They play with inspiration, enthusiasm and a lot of confidence. [Hansi] Flick has managed to make this team believe in itself.”
While, with all due respect, Red Star might struggle to match Flick’s high fliers for quality, one key factor could be a hostile atmosphere in its stadium known as the “Little Maracana” – in a nod to the iconic Rio de Janeiro ground.
“The atmosphere will be fantastic, Barcelona always play with full stadiums, but tomorrow you will see what our fans are like,” Milojevic warned. “It’s up to us to show what we know and enjoy the atmosphere.”
