As soon as Robert Prosinecki saw the commanding figure patrolling in front of FK Rad’s defence during a Serbian league match in 2011, he knew he had to get him. The former Croatia midfielder had been in charge of Red Star Belgrade – where he had made his name as a player during the late 1980s – for six months and was on the lookout for new recruits when he spotted Luka Milivojevic. “Prosinecki really wanted him. In the first meeting I remember him telling me Luka would be his captain,” recalls Ranko Stojic, a former Yugoslavia goalkeeper who was then Rad’s president. “He’s always been a real leader from a young age and it was his and his father’s dream to play for Red Star. I think it was an easy decision to make.”
Crystal Palace supporters may still be scratching their heads in an attempt to come up with a song for the midfielder who arrived from Olympiakos on transfer deadline day for an initial €13m (£11.1m) but there is one thing upon which they can agree. While the reinvigorated Mamadou Sakho has rightly attracted most of the plaudits for Palace’s revival under Sam Allardyce since the France defender arrived on loan from Liverpool on the same day as Milivojevic, the performances of the 25‑year‑old from Kragujevac, Serbia’s fourth‑largest city, have certainly not gone unnoticed in south London.
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