And Djordje Lazic became an iconic figure for another Donetsk club
On July 23 in Lublin in the first match second qualifying round of the Champions League Kiev Dinamo will play against Belgrade Partizan. This is already the fifth match in the history of the confrontation between the two clubs, and their Eight Serbian footballers (from Gavrancic and Kulic to Pantic) left their mark on the annals of the white-blues). It is noteworthy that among them There is not a single player who transferred to Dynamo directly from Partizanand only one – Petrovic – played for the Belgrade club before moving to Kyiv.
And in general, it must be admitted that our clubs did not pay attention to Partizan. Of the almost hundred Serbian players who played in the elite division of Ukrainian football at one time, there are less than ten direct transfers from Partizan. But among them is the transfer of a Ukrainian, a player who became iconic for the late Donetsk Metalurh, and the sales of Igor Duljaj and Zvonimir Vukic by the Belgrade club to Shakhtar are still in the top 20 most profitable transfers of Partizan.
Thus, according to Transfermarkt, Shakhtar paid Partizan 4.7 million euros for Vukic’s transfer in July 2003, while Duljaj’s transfer cost the Miners 4 million in the same currency six months later. Vukic’s transfer is 13th on Partizan’s list of biggest sales, while Duljaj’s transfer is 20th.
Vukic, who was considered a much more stellar player than Duljaj, did not have a successful career at Shakhtar, despite his excellent statistics: 20 goals and 23 assists in 106 matches for the Miners. During his three-year contract with Shakhtar, Zvonimir was loaned out twice – to Portsmouth and Partizan, and left the club as a free agent, having won three championship titles and two Ukrainian Cups.
Duljaj played for Shakhtar for 6.5 years, making 196 appearances (six goals and four assists) and winning four championship titles, two national Cups and the UEFA Cup. He moved to Sevastopol, where he played for another four seasons (until the annexation of Crimea) and ended his career.
Midfielder Djordje Lazic spent the same amount of time as Duljaj, but in another Donetsk club – the now defunct Metalurh – for whose transfer Partizan received 500 thousand euros in January 2009. The midfielder soon became one of Metalurh’s key players, having played a total of 178 matches (22 goals and 22 assists) for the Donetsk club.
But another Partizan representative in Metallurg, forward Iliya Stolitsa, did not work out in the club and Ukraine. The forward arrived in Donetsk in the summer of 2002, but in three years he played only 26 matches for Metallurg (8 goals and an assist).
Only four matches for Hoverla, and the player left Partizan and there, Macedonian defender Aleksandar Lazevski spent six months. However, he was not remembered for anything outstanding in Ukraine: Hoverla lost three matches with his participation, and won one.
And the only Ukrainian who moved from Partizan to domestic clubs, and to two at once, is Yuriy Vakulko. In the winter of 2018, the midfielder left for the Belgrade club from Dnipro, in the fall of the same year he ended up on loan at the capital’s Arsenal, and in the summer of 2019, already as a free agent, he returned to Dnipro, but this time to SK.
Source: Sportarena
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