Saša Stamenković

A goalkeeper who left Serbia in 2011 as a Cup winner and returned twelve years later, in March 2023, to keep goal for Mladost Lučani — that is the shape of Saša Stamenković's career. Since the move from Aktobe he has passed 116 league appearances for the club, and his contract runs to June 2027.

His route up was unhurried. Forty appearances for Dubočica, thirty-two at Radnički Kragujevac, then seventy-one at Napredak Kruševac, where in June 2008 Crvena Zvezda signed him for a fee of around €12,000. He made 79 appearances there, won the Serbian Cup in 2010 and was named in the Serbian SuperLiga Team of the Season for 2009–10.

Neftchi Baku paid €158,000 for him in June 2011, and across four seasons and 98 appearances he won the Azerbaijan Premier League in 2011–12 and again in 2012–13, adding the Azerbaijan Cup in 2012–13. He then played 55 games at Okzhetpes, 63 at Sabah, five at Aktobe — with those moves reported as free transfers or without disclosed fees.

He has never been capped by the senior Serbia side. He was, though, picked in the Serbia U-23 squad and went to the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing as a goalkeeper, in the same year his move to Crvena Zvezda went through.

Nor has the recognition stopped in Lučani. He was named Serbian SuperLiga Player of the Week in Rounds 2 and 15 of the 2024–25 season, and again in Round 10 of 2025–26.