Promising Serbia get rude awakening with another early World Cup exit

DOHA : Half-fit players, a leaky defence and a controversial flag that raised diplomatic tensions underlined yet another exit for Serbia in the group stage at the World Cup, proving that their resurgence earlier this year was nothing but a false dawn.

Under coach Dragan Stojkovic, Serbia were fancied to give their Group G opponents a run for their money having secured automatic qualification by forcing a talented Portugal side into a playoff to qualify for the World Cup.

With an encouraging showing in the Nations League earlier this year, Serbia were expected to finally break their World Cup group stage jinx having never reached the knockouts since the break-up of Yugoslavia.

But despite having two promising strikers in Aleksandar Mitrovic and Dusan Vlahovic, both of whom were in fine form in the league with Fulham and Juventus respectively, the two started together only in their final group game.

Mitrovic scored nine goals in the Premier League but an ankle injury severely hampered his preparations for the tournament as Serbia sweated over his availability while Vlahovic did not arrive in Doha 100 per cent.

OFF THE PACE

When Mitrovic did make the starting line-up against Brazil in their opener, he was well off the pace and barely received service in a humbling 2-0 defeat by the pre-tournament favourites which immediately put Serbia on the backfoot.

While Serbia did net three goals against Cameroon, their defence was given a reality check when Vincent Aboubakar ghosted past their offside trap twice in three minutes in a 3-3 draw.

In the final game, Switzerland ran riot to hand Serbia a 3-2 defeat that consigned Stojkovic's side to the bottom of the group while the Swiss set up a last 16 clash with Portugal.

Stojkovic had said