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• Sporting Lisbon 1-1 Ventspils

  ESPN Star - Found Nov. 6, 2009 Kolinko, who produced saves from Daniel Carrico and Liedson before the break before denying Saleiro and Simon Vukcevic after half-time.

• Sporting vs Ventspils Preview

  ESPN Star - Found Nov. 4, 2009 Simon Vukcevic is also back to full fitness but Marat Izmailov, Yannick Djalo and Marco Caneira remain doubts.

• BENTO UNDER PRESSURE FOR VICTORY

  Sporting Life - Found Nov. 4, 2009 Simon Vukcevic is also back to full fitness but Marat Izmailov, Yannick Djalo and Marco Caneira remain doubts.

• Ireland draw blank

  Newcastle Sunday Sun - Found Oct. 14, 2009 ... with a first-half header, although Ireland had a major escape after the break when Paul McShane blocked Simon Vukcevic's goal-bound shot with... Ireland draw blank - Ananova Ireland draw blank - Mirror.co.uk Ireland draw blank - Hawick News Ireland draw blank - Press Association Explore All

• Republic of Ireland draw a blank but remain unbeaten

  Metro.co.uk - Found Oct. 15, 2009 ... with a first-half header, although Ireland had a major escape after the break when Paul McShane blocked Simon Vukcevic's goal-bound shot with... National Sport: Ireland draw blank - Coventry Telegraph Explore All

• Filipovic backs Ireland for play-off success

  The Independent - Found Oct. 15, 2009 ... have added a second scalp had Slovakian referee Vladimir Hrinak spotted defender Paul McShane blocking Simon Vukcevic's 66th-minute shot with...

• Republic of Ireland 0 - 0 Montenegro: Anti-climax as Ireland rely on ...

  The Scotsman - Found Oct. 14, 2009 The defender unwittingly blocked Montenegro midfielder Simon Vukcevic's goal-bound 66th-minute shot with his arm, but Slovakian referee...

• Rep of Ireland 0 Montenegro 0

  The Sun - Found Oct. 14, 2009 And they had a major let-off midway through the second half when Paul McShane got away with blocking Simon Vukcevic's goal-bound shot with his...

• World Cup qualifying wrap

  ONE News - Found Oct. 14, 2009 Montenegro were denied a clear penalty on 66 minutes when Paul McShane handled Simon Vukcevic's goalbound effort while team mate... Portugal defeat Malta to secure playoff place - CNN Portugal secure World Cup playoff place - CNN Soccer: Portugal stay alive, Slovakia, Switzerland reach finals - New Zealand Herald Portugal thrash Malta to clinch World Cup playoff spot - Canada.com Explore All

• Ireland end World Cup qualifying campaign unbeaten

  AFP via Yahoo! - Found Oct. 14, 2009 Rowland's first competitive start for the Irish came to an abrupt end just minutes after collecting a booking for a foul on Simon Vukcevic. Ireland end World Cup qualifying campaign unbeaten (AFP) - Yahoo! News Explore All

Simon Vukcevic extracted from Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia, distributed under the GNU Free Documentation License

Simon Vukčević
Personal information
Full name	Simon Vukčević
Date of birth	January 29, 1986 (1986-01-29) (age 23)
Place of birth	Titograd, Yugoslavia
Height	1.79 m (5 ft 10+1⁄2 in)
Playing position	Left midfielder/Attacking midfielder
Club information
Current club	Sporting CP
Number	10
Youth career
	Budućnost Podgorica Partizan
Senior career1
Years	Club	App (Gls)*
2003–2005 2006–2007 2007–	Partizan Belgarde Saturn Moskovskaya Sporting CP	61 (16) 28 0(1) 39 (12)
National team2
2003–2006 2004–2005 2007 2007–	Serbia and Montenegro U-21 Serbia and Montenegro Montenegro U-21 Montenegro	07 0(1) 05 0(0) 01 0(1) 16 0(1)
1 Senior club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only and correct as of 5 January 2009. 2 National team caps and goals correct as of 25 February 2007. * Appearances (Goals)

Simon Vukčević (Montenegrin Cyrillic: Симон Вукчевић; born 29 January 1986) is a Montenegrin football player who currently plays for Sporting Clube de Portugal

One of the most exciting players of recent times in Serbia and Montenegro,^{citation needed} attacking midfielder Vukčević started learning his craft at FK Budućnost Podgorica before moving to the Serbian capital to join FK Partizan youth system at 16.

Simon's father Ilija is former sporting director at FK Zeta.

Contents 1 Club career 1.1 Partizan Belgrade 1.2 Saturn Ramenskoe 1.3 Sporting Clube de Portugal 2 National team 2.1 Under-21 level 2.2 Senior level 3 Statistics 4 External links 5 References

Club career

Partizan Belgrade

This section does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (September 2009)

Blessed with boundless confidence, he spent two years in the youth ranks in Belgrade before bursting into the first team, scoring and creating goals from midfield. He was awarded the Number 1 shirt, in recognition of his popularity among Partizan supporters. His best season with the club was the 2004/05 campaign during which he starred with eye-catching midfield displays in domestic league and UEFA Cup. However, the form didn't spill over into 2005/06 season as Vukčević faced criticism over his excessive solo play and poor shot selection, as well as overall deteriorating form.

He was nominated for the Best Young Montenegrin Player Award in early 2006.

Saturn Ramenskoe

Despite criticism, his move to Russian side FC Saturn Moskovskaya Oblast in January 2006 came as somewhat of a shock. The transfer, said^{citation needed} to have cost the Russian club about €7 million, failed to raise Vukčević's form to what it once was at Partizan. In late July 2006, he was even demoted to Saturn's reserve squad with coach Vladimír Weiss publicly blasting him in the Russian press for displaying bad attitude in training and having a lack of manners.¹

Saturn finished the 2006 season at disappointing 11th place in Russian league, and as the 2007 season was about to start Vukčević expressed frustration with coach Weiss playing him out of position. He also said that coming to Saturn was a mistake and that he would have preferred a more ambitious club.²

The 2007 Russian League season started somewhat more promisingly for Vukčević as he finally got some playing time, which he used to finally score his first league goal. However, things soon went awry again and he completely lost a spot on the team, which prompted Saturn brass to start looking at options to move him. The departure of coach Weiss and subsequent arrival of Gadzhi Gadzhiev to Saturn bench hardly changed matters for Vukčević as he was completely out of the first team picture.

Sporting Clube de Portugal

On 25 June 2007, Saturn reportedly agreed a €4 million transfer fee with Sporting Clube de Portugal, but the deal stalled when the Russian club also demanded 20% of any subsequent transfer fees involving Vukčević. Eventually, on 28 June, both clubs agreed a €2 million fee in addition to an agreement about splitting his future transfer fee 50-50.^{citation needed}

Vukčević scored on his debut in a pre-season friendly against Lille OSC and soon made himself a mainstay of Paulo Bento’s team. His Portuguese Liga debut came against Académica de Coimbra in the season opener where he was man of the match^vague, but the midfielder was especially impressive during a rough period Sporting endured around Christmas, several times carrying the side with his never-say-die attitude and eye for goal.

Vukčević scored an important goal against rivals Benfica on 2 March 2008, which ended in a 1-1 home draw. On 27 January, he scored against leaders FC Porto in Sporting's 2-0 win. He ranked the team's second best league scorer, only behind Liédson.

During the summer 2008 transfer window, Bolton Wanderers and Blackburn Rovers were at the top of the list of clubs reportedly interested in signing the Montenegrin player. Nonetheless, Sporting reiterated their desire to keep Vukčević for the 2008-09 season. Furthermore, his contract has a minimum-fee release clause of €20 million (in stark contrast to the £5 million that the English clubs were reportedly prepared to offer).

At the start of the 2008-09 season, Vukčević got involved in a controversial dispute with Sporting manager Paulo Bento over losing his place in the starting XI. After playing 45 minutes as a substitute in Sporting's 2-0 win over Belenenses, Vukčević declared his intention to leave the club in the December transfer window.³ On 21 November 2008, without any warning, he missed training to join his national team one day before expected. Sporting fined him €5,000 and placed him on individual training until further notice. On 29 November, after holding a press conference stating his wish to remain in Sporting and apologizing for his behavior, he was allowed to train with the rest of the team. Sporting told him^{citation needed} that "words impress no one," and his future on the club would depend on how he took this second chance. On 5 December, he substituted teammate Hélder Postiga in the 75th minute of the away league game against Estrela da Amadora and scored a goal two minutes later, the last of Sporting's 3-1 win.

National team

Under-21 level

At 18, Vukčević was selected by head coach Vladimir Petrović to be part of Serbia and Montenegro Under-21 national team at the 2004 European Under-21 Football Championship in Germany. Vukčević had a notable tournament, scoring in a group stage loss to Italy (1-2), as well as in a semi-final penalty shootout against Sweden. Somewhat surprisingly^{citation needed}, Serbia-Montenegro progressed all the way to the final where it lost again to the Italian team, led by rising 21-year-old star Alberto Gilardino and 20-year-old Daniele De Rossi.

Barely two months later, Vukčević was then part of the Serbian and Montenegrin 2004 Olympic football team that exited in the first round, finishing fourth in Group C behind gold-medal winners Argentina, Australia, and Tunisia.

He also played for the national under-21 squad that qualified for another European championships, this time in Portugal 2006. Capped five times already for the senior national side, Vukčević was hoping to further hone his talents with the Under-21s in Portugal, but had a poor tournament. Following an indifferent display in the first group game (0-1 loss to Germany), head coach Dragan Okuka dropped him from the first team and Vukčević rarely featured in the side for the rest of the tournament. Serbia-Montenegro ended up progressing to semifinal where it lost on penalites to Ukraine.

Vukčević was once again called up, this time at Under-21 level, to represent Montenegro in its premier match against Bulgaria in the qualifications for Under-21 European Championship 2009, scoring a goal and missing a penalty on his debut in a 2-1 victory against the Bulgarians.

Senior level

Following his noted under-21 displays, Vukčević started getting call-ups to the Serbia-Montenegro senior side from head coach Ilija Petković. His debut came at the age of 18 during July 2004 friendly, as a substitute against Slovakia at Kirin Cup in Fukuoka, Japan. He was among the slew of younger players from domestic league or those who have been out of the national team picture (Bojan Zajić, Đorđe Jokić, Bojan Neziri, Jovan Markoski, Nenad Jestrović, Dragan Šarac, Miloš Kolaković, Aleksandar Pantić, etc.) to get an opportunity to show what they can do at the said cup. Couple of days later Vukčević featured in another Kirin Cup match - this time versus Japan, again as a sub. As his form at Partizan stabilized, he received another call-up in February 2005 for a friendly at Bulgaria, which was his first national team start before being substituted for Zvonimir Vukić. Couple of months later in June 2005, coach Petković gave Vukčević his competitive debut, putting him in for Ognjen Koroman during the second half of the 2006 World Cup qualifier at home versus Belgium. Serbia-Montenegro played to a sluggish and forgettable 0-0 draw. Four days later, Vukčević was on a plane to Toronto where he played the full 90 minutes in a friendly versus Italy at the Rogers Centre. This also turned out to be his last ever appearance for Serbia-Montenegro. His club form at Partizan took a dip in the first part of 2005-06 league season and his transfer to Saturn failed to improve his performances during the early part of 2006 Russian league season, all of which meant that he wasn't getting any more senior call-ups.

As Montenegro seceded from the State Union of Serbia-Montenegro in May 2006, and Vukčević is from Podgorica, he chose to play for Montenegro in the future. He played in their first ever game, when Montenegro won over Hungary (2:1) in a friendly match on March 24, 2007.

Statistics

(incomplete, only with Sporting)

Career statistics

Club	Season	Portuguese Liga		Portuguese Cup		Carlsberg Cup		UEFA		Total
		Games	Goals	Games	Goals	Games	Goals	Games	Goals	Games	Goals
Sporting CP	2007/08	19	7	2	1	4	2	7	2	32	12
Total		19	7	2	1	4	2	7	2	32	12

External links

• FootballDatabase Vukčević's profile and stats
• Simon Vukcevic PortuGOAL profile
• Players to Watch: Simon Vukčević on FIFA World Cup
• U21 Profile at UEFA.com
• Vukcevic in Portuguese Liga 2007/08

References

v • d • e Sporting Clube de Portugal – current squad 1 Patrício · 3 Carriço · 4 A. Polga · 5 Pedro Silva · 6 Adrien · 7 Izmailov · 9 Saleiro · 10 Vukčević · 11 Caicedo · 12 Caneira · 13 Tonel · 14 Matías · 16 Tiago · 17 Angulo · 18 Grimi · 19 Batista · 20 Yannick · 23 H. Postiga · 24 M. Veloso · 25 Pereirinha · 28 J. Moutinho (c) · 31 Liedson · 34 Stojković · 44 Nuno Reis · 55 A. Marques · 78 Abel · Manager: Paulo Bento