The distrust with which Lamia’s fans greeted Zoran Tosic at the end of January last year probably had something to do with the composure they experienced nearly five years earlier when needlessly tearing down the city walls for Hakim Mastur, their child prodigy Milan, who in his teens just before the middle of the last decade, some considered him the real talent in world football. The incredible strokes he did in an Milan jersey early in his career turned out to be more suited to… a circus than to the harsh world of competitive football.

The 20-year-old (then) Mastour passed and missed Lamia. In his few months in the jersey, he played a total of only 60 minutes and went completely unnoticed, leaving behind only broken promises and court backlogs.

The case of Zoran Tosic was a little different. He was also one of the famous prodigies of his time in his youth, but before he got to Lamia, he managed to do important things in his career, even if he never managed to live up to the big fuss he made 15 years ago. when Manchester United paid £6.9m with the blessing of Sir Alex Ferguson to buy him from Partizan. It was an impressive cap on the football stock market, as the Serbian national team bought him a year and a half ago from Banat Zrenjanin for only 400 thousand euros, and sold it for almost 20 times more!

Unlike Mastour, and despite the doubts of Lamia’s fans, especially about the 36 years he carried on his back, Tosic justified his money. Despite suffering from constant injuries and rarely playing since he was signed, his last two matches have more than paid off.

In the penultimate game of the season, with a great strike late in stoppage time, he equalized with Levadeiacos and pinned Lamia, and in the last, a few days later, drew 2-2 at Neapoli with a brilliant goal, he took Lamia out of a hellish relegation and signed a contract to stay in that category. He, of course, also stayed… in Greece, as there was an automatic extension clause for his contract for another year if the team remained in Super League 1. And he was spared two great goals of his own in their most important games. years, goals that partly explain why he was once considered one of the greatest talents in world football.

For a player with such a track record and such characteristics, his “fall” in Greece to a team struggling to stay in the top flight is quite surprising. A few years earlier, he had other offers from our country, but his transfer did not take place, apparently because the required amount was unbearable. “That was when I played my last year in Russia. I had a lot of offers from Greece, from teams that were in the first 3-4 places in the standings. Something didn’t happen then, it happened now. When I got the offer from Lamia, I didn’t know anything about the team. I contacted my very good friend Ozegovic, who plays in Volos, and he told me good words that this is an organized team that does not deserve to fight to stay in the division,” he said recently.

His career began like a fairy tale. A personal choice of Sir Alex Ferguson, he joined Manchester United in 2009 alongside Partizan teammate Adem Lijajic at the age of 21. They gave him 14th place, which earned him a spot on the big team roster from the start. In his first appearance, he came on as a substitute for Cristiano Ronaldo in an FA Cup 4th round tie against Tottenham Hotspur. He played two more games in a difficult first season before Sir Alex ruled that the young winger should be baked into a less demanding team with less competition and more opportunities.

“It was such an exciting time when I went to Manchester and met Sir Alex. I grew up as a United fan and the prospect of working for the man who made the club so successful was incredible. However, there is a big difference between the Serbian and English leagues. When I got to Manchester, I found that I was not yet ready for that level. I have spoken to Sir Alex many times. He kept telling me that I have quality and that I should keep working hard. I wanted to play more so I went on loan to Cologne where I had a great six months,” Tosic told the Daily Record shortly after his move to CSKA.

Although in Germany he scored 5 goals and provided 2 assists in 14 matches for Cologne in 4 months, there was no starting place for him at Manchester United and therefore he did not hesitate to accept an alternative to CSKA Moscow, a team that constantly claimed the title in Russia. and often played in the Champions League. “Even now I think about this moment. Maybe I shouldn’t have made such a quick decision then. Maybe I should have stayed, worked harder and shown Sir Alex that I am fighting for my place,” he later said, even if his choice to go to Russia was justified, as the result showed.

CSKA paid 9.5 million euros to buy him from the “babies”, and with them Tosic spent 7 wonderful years, with three championships, two Cups, many Champions and Europa League appearances, with 241 matches, 47 goals and 41 helps. One of those goals was against Real Madrid at the Bernabéu, but even more important was the goal against Lokomotiv Moscow that gave CSKA the title in the last game of the season.

He played for the Serbian national team at the 2008 Olympics and the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, making 76 appearances in total and scoring 11 goals. After Tosic’s return to Serbia and Partizan for a second period (81 matches and 26 goals), Taizu Yuada subsequently offered him a lucrative contract. After China and before joining Lamia, he played for Tobol Kastanay from Kazakhstan, with whom he played in 48 games (11 goals) and won two more championships, bringing his career total to 6. Lamia caught up with him shortly before signing with Hungarian Debrecen and although at 36 he doesn’t have the freshness of other seasons, he proved to be the most important link in the chain keeping the team away from Fthiotida for the 7th straight year in the major league salons.