Clemente selects squad to face Azerbaijan

Serbia coach Javier Clemente has picked his team of 20 players who will kick off Serbia's campaign for Euro 2008 qualification. Serbia will host Azerbaijan at an empty Crvena Zvezda stadium on September the 2nd. The match is being played behind closed doors as punishment for crowd trouble, which occurred in Serbia and Montenegro’s last World Cup qualifier against Bosnia & Herzegovina. Notable are several inclusions and one or two absences.

Javier Clemente kept his promise to give the youth of Serbia a go with picking out several youngsters in his squad of 20 players. One of them is Fiorentina's Vlada Avramov, who impressed lately at the Italian club and is pushing for the top job between the posts in Firenze. Nemanja Vidic is back after missing the entire World Cup due to his knee injury, as is FC Basel’s Ivan Ergic who was one of Serbia and Montenegro's better players in Germany.

The most notable exclusion is the one of Mateja Kezman. The Athletico Madrid forward was Serbia and Montenegro's top scorer during their World Cup qualifying campaign. However, recently he has been out of form and it seems Clemente feels he is at the moment not capable enough for a spot in the national team. Although it seems spots in the Serbian forward line will be hard get with players like Danijel Ljuboja, Nikola Zigic and Marko Pantelic to contend with.

Vladimir Stojkovic will once again be between the posts and with no Dragoslav Jevric in the squad, it seems that he has stuck by his word and will not play again for Serbia. As said above, Vlada Avramov is now picked out as second goal keeper.

Complete squad of Serbia

Goalkeepers: Vladimir Stojkovic (Nantes), Vlada Avramov (Fiorentina)

Defenders: Marjan Markovic (Dynamo Kyiv), Nemanja Vidic (Manchester United), Milan Stepanov (Trabzonspor), Milan Bisevac (RC Lens), Mladen Krstajic (Schalke), Aleksandar Lukovic (Ascoli), Branislav Ivanovic (Lokomotiv Moskva)

Midfielders: Igor Duljaj (Shakhtar Donetsk), Nenad Kovacevic (Crvena Zvezda), Dejan Stankovic (Inter Milan), Ivan Ergic (FC Basel), Aleksandar Trisovic (Kryvbas), Sasa Ilic (Galatasaray), Ognjen Koroman (Portsmouth)

Forwards: Danijel Ljuboja (VfB Stuttgart), Marko Pantelic (Hertha Berlin), Nikola Zigic (Crvena Zvezda), Danko Lazovic (Vitesse Arnhem)

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