New Women’s NT coach in Serbia, Sasa Boskovic, better atmosphere and two easy wins at the start of EURO 2012 qualification, weren’t enough for some young – talented players, who decided to change national T-shirts. At Monday, Serbia began November’s preparation in Kladovo, city close to the border with Romania and city of Severin, where will “Carpatia Cup” take place next weekend with Romania, Hungary, Macedonia and Serbia as competitors.
Preparation started without two “silver U17 girls” from WCh in Slovakia – 2008, right wing, Zeljka Nikolic (decided to play for Montenegro) and right back, Jelena Zivkovic. Nikolic is already in Podgorica, where she is a member of Buducnost Podgorica from 2010 (most of the time in Biseri – Pljevlja on loan). She had four appearances for Serbian NT, but club’s influence, as in cases of Katarina Bulatovic, Mirjana Milenkovic, Ana Djokic and other Serbian players, who decided to play for Montenegro, was something special.
Destiny of the second player, one of the best lefthanded players in her age, Jelena Zivkovic (1991) from Hungarian FTC is much more interesting. She was unsatisfied with her status in Serbian NT, even she had chance to play at EHF EURO 2010 in Denmark and Norway where Serbia won 14th place. Zivkovic was the member of Serbian squad in WCh Qualification clashes against Croatia last June, which Serbia easily lost. She was part of the squad for two games at the beginning of EURO 2012 qualification against Greece and Portugal, but not on the bench. That was obviosly the reason, why she doesn’t come to Kladovo and stayed offline for calls from Serbia.
Serbian Media have already speculation about her future. Unofficial informations are saying that she is close to agreement with Hungarian Federation, country, where she played from the last summer (FTC Budapest). On the other side, some sources speaking about his future in Montenegro as that become routine for women’s handball in former Yugoslavia…
With three years break, she will be ready for a new NT challenge in 2014…
