Dusan Tadic was accurate on Tuesday evening when he came on as a substitute for the Serbian national team in the World Cup qualifier against Azerbaijan (3-1 win). Dusan Vlahovic scored the first two Serbian goals and was able to make a hat-trick when the ball hit the spot. Tadic, however, decided that he himself took the penalty and thus deprived his teammate of the chance of a hat-trick. After the match, the captain of Ajax explained why he did this.
Serbia struggled to distance itself from Azerbaijan on its own field. After half an hour of play, Vlahovic had opened the score, but due to a goal by Emin Makhmudov, both teams went into the break at 1-1. After the tea, Vlahovic scored again, after which Tadic came in after 65 minutes of play. In the final phase, Serbia was awarded a penalty and Tadic Vlahovic did not want to take it.
Tadic strikes against Azerbaijan! ??
The striker of Ajax has now come in and uses a penalty ??#ZiggoSport #WCQ2022 #SRBAZE pic.twitter.com/Tpa1YoNc6R— Ziggo Sport Football (@ZS_Voetbal) October 12, 2021
Afterwards, Tadic did not want to go into too much detail about the incident, but did explain why he decided to take the penalty. “Dusan needs to know who is older”, said the Ajax player in conversation with Informer. “I told Dusan at the penalty that he would score another goal in this match, but unfortunately that didn’t happen. He is still young and will score many goals in the future,” Tadic said of the 21-year-old Fiorentina striker.
Serbia is in good shape in Group A of the World Cup qualifiers. The team of national coach Dragan Stojkovic is in the lead. Portugal follows with a point behind in second place, although the Portuguese have played one game less. The meeting between Serbia and Portugal is scheduled for November 14.