Andrey Ilić

Chicago is where he was born; Belgrade is where the football came from. Ilić went into the youth system at Partizan and stayed inside it until 2018, and that academy is the whole of his club football before the senior game.

The step since has been to Čukarički, where for the 2025/2026 season he is on the senior squad list rather than in an age-group team. That is the harder line to cross for a player of his year: a squad list is a working document, and a name on it means training every day alongside the players who are picked at the weekend.

Serbia have picked him at under-19 level, and he was named in the squad for the UEFA Under-19 European Championship of 2027. That is the shape of his international record so far — an age-group call-up, and nothing entered against his name at senior level. The under-19 team and the Čukarički first-team squad now run in parallel for him, each with its own calendar and its own competition for places, and the two do not always pull in the same direction. Which of them takes the larger share of his season is the question the next months answer.