When it comes to African football, Milutin Sredojevic is one of the experienced mentors who’ve seen it all – the rosy, the chaotic and the downright tragic of the game in this God-forsaken continent. The Serbian has overseen at least six big clubs in different countries, as well as four national teams, including Libya, his current employers since October. In South Africa, the 54-year-old is best remembered for his two spells with Orlando Pirates in the 2006/07 season and between 2017 and 2019. Having been at the recent Africa Cup of Nations, Soccer Laduma’s Masebe Qina settled on no better a candidate to do a debrief of the tournament with. In this interview, the man fondly known as “Micho” reveals why he is proud of Bafana Bafana, talks about his progress so far in North Africa, keeping in contact with some of his former charges at the Buccaneers, and more…
Masebe Qina: Coach, first things first, what did you make of the 2023 edition of the Africa Cup of Nations?
Milutin Sredojevic: I have 23 years coaching in Africa and I can say I am a practical witness of everything that has happened in African football over those years. I can say I am a witness of what has happened in the Africa Cup of Nations since 2002 and when I measure each competition and going into the deeper details, I can say that this Afcon has been the most competitive to date. Why am I saying this? I am saying it because it has provided so much upside down and dramatic situations. Some of the things that occurred showed that we have a very competitive Africa Cup of Nations, and in the same moment the (AFC) Asian Cup, and when you compare the two tournaments, there is a difference. There have been so many matches that we shall not forget because they showed us a masterpiece of how unpredictable the game of football can be. A classic example of what I am talking about is the local team, Ivory Coast, which won the first match and were over the moon, only to lose the second and third matches respectively and were on the brink of being eliminated from the tournament. But they managed to stay in the competition due to the fact that Morocco beat Zambia, while Mozambique played a draw with Ghana. It simply speaks volumes about the nature of the game of football and after that, they were slowly crawling and crawling, and they produced the best performance in the final to win the Africa Cup of Nations.
