Failed Wonderkid #5- Lazar Markovic

Biodata

Full Name: Lazar Markovic

Nationality: Serbian

Date of Birth: 2 March 1994

Position: Right Winger

Current Club: Partizan

Current Market Price: 4.00mil Euro (Updated on Oct 2019)

Highest Market Price: 20.00mil Euro (Aug 2014)

Former Clubs:

2011- 2013 Partizan

2013- 2014 Benfica

2014- 2019 Liverpool

2015- 2016 Fenerbahce (loan)

2016- 2017 Sporting CP (loan)

2017 Hull City (loan)

2018 Anderlecht (loan)

2019 Fulham

International Career:

2012- Serbia

Achievement:

Partizan

2011- 2012 SuperLiga

2012- 2013 SuperLiga

Benfica

2013- 2014 Primeira Liga

2013- 2014 Taca de Portugal

2013- 2014 Taca de Liga

Career

Imagine been nominated in the Team of the Year in your league and selected as the Player of the Year in your team at your debut footballing season, all at the tender age of 17. You can imagine the world would be at his feet once he progressed and developed as time passed. However, reality can sometimes prove to be very hurtful, especially to this young Serbian whose career doesn’t follow the pathway that supposed to be.

Lazar Markovic first joined Partizan’s youth setup as a trainee back in 2006 when he was 12. He was handed his debut in 2011 by his coach at that time, Aleksandar Stanojevic on the final round of Serbian SuperLiga against Sloboda Uzice as a second-half substitute. In the same year, he signed his first professional contract for five years. With his seven goals and six assists contribution in his debut campaign in all competition, he was nominated as Partizan’s Player of the year at the end of 2011 and 2011-2012 SuperLiga Team of the Year selection at the end of the season. In the next season, Markovic contributed seven goals and ten assists in all competition and nominated in 2012- 2013 SuperLiga Team of the Year. At the same period, he earned his first international cap for Serbia in February 2012. He had the world at his feet at the age of just 18 at that time.

His talent wasn’t going unnoticed. Benfica had announced the signing of Lazar Markovic in June 2013. This transfer had caused certain confusion as most of the Serbian journalist has misinterpreted Partizan’s president comments as he mentioned Chelsea in his statement. Despite the early chaos, he settled himself in Lisbon very quickly as he registered seven goals and five assists in all competitions. Markovic helped this Benfica side to reach the finals of Europa League even though he missed the finals against Sevilla due to a sideline fight against Marco Vucinic against Juventus that leads to a red card suspension despite he had been subbed off in semi-finals. He had been the key figure of Benfica's local treble season in his sole season in this Lisbon based football club. At this stage, he attracted the attention of several clubs around Europe top league.

On July 2014, Markovic signed for Liverpool for around 20mil Euro. However, his career in Liverpool didn’t take off as he imagined. He was shown a straight red in the Champions League match against Basel for violent conduct and was given a four-match European ban for this. Furthermore, he only scored his goal against Bournemouth in the EFL Cup in December 2014 and his first Premier League goal was in January 2015 against Sunderland. At the end of the season, he only registered three goals and one assist in all competition. It’s a far cry from his previous seasons.

After a disappointing debut season in Anfield, Lazar Markovic found that his future was not in Liverpool as he started to be loaned out in four clubs (Fenerbahce, Sporting CP, Hull City, Anderlecht) in four years. However, each of the loan spells was rather disappointing and his potential was doubted by most of the footballing personnel. His attitude is the main reason for his slow progressed career. To make things worse, he didn’t get a single national call up since 2016. Markovic football career seems to suffer a huge hit from reality. Even he returned to Liverpool, he was not given any chances by Jurgen Klopp as there are more reliable and better options on the same position with him in the squad such as Sadio Mane, Mohamed Salah and Xherdan Shaqiri.

On the deadline day of January 2019, Markovic had finally escaped from Anfield and moved to Fulham on a free transfer until the end of the season with the recommendation of his countryman Aleksandar Mitrovic. He would expect his career will have a renaissance in Craven Cottage. However, he only made one sole appearance against West Ham United as a substitute for Jean Michael Seri. Markovic was subsequently released by Fulham after they get relegated. He has then signed a three-year contract with his first club, Partizan in order to resurrect his career in his homeland. At the time of writing, Markovic had scored three goals in four matches in SuperLiga. With this goal scoring ratio, he can one day returned to the elite football league in future.

Verdict

Disappointment Rate: 6.5/10. It is still too young to absolutely define his career as a failure as he is just 25 by the time of writing. However, it is very clear that Markovic’s career had not been as smooth and good as he supposed to be. A homecoming to Belgrade might hopefully be helped Markovic to regain his form and return to the top class of the football pyramid in future.