Roma Goalkeeper Svilar: A hero but no National Team to fight for

The best goalkeeper in Serie A says no to Serbia, but a half-game prevents him from embracing Belgium.

One can be a citizen of the world and a bit of a nationalist, multilingual without the need for borders and yet deeply attached to a land. It's called attachment and it finds fertile ground thanks to deep roots. Mile Svilar, the number one of Roma, has always had Belgium in his heart, despite his parents' Serbian nationality. The boy born in Antwerp played with the Red Devils from U15 to U21, climbing the ranks of the youth national teams, but now he seems trapped in the maze of FIFA regulations. To the point that the best goalkeeper in Serie A doesn't seem to have a footballing homeland and even during this break watches international matches from his couch at home.

The match for Serbia

Driven by his father Rakto, a former number one in Yugoslavia, in 2021 Svilar responded to a call-up from Serbia, making his debut in the second half of a friendly match won 4-0 against Qatar. Now he is at the center of a real controversy: the rules would prevent him from switching from one national team to another, but his entourage argues that it would be possible since his debut did not materialize in an official match. A recent change in the regulations allows for a switch within the first 3 appearances, provided the player is under 21 years old, and Svilar came on the field four days after turning 22. We are therefore at the limit, and on this issue, sooner or later, the sole judge of the FIFA Football Tribunal's player status will have to rule, as happened in 2023 in the case of N'Dicka, who chose Ivory Coast instead of France.

The fury of Stojkovic

Coach Stojkovic is furious with the boy: "I gave him the opportunity to make his debut with Serbia while he was in Benfica's reserve team - he said in June - At Roma, he was Rui Patricio's backup and I kept calling him up. At a certain point, he said we shouldn't do it. Then came Belgium. He took the wrong path, it's his fault." "For regulatory reasons, we still can't use him," added the former Belgium coach, Tedesco, hoping for a turnaround. Now the ball is in Rudi Garcia's court, who in the meantime is enjoying Courtois' infinite talent between the posts. The only real certainty in Mile's life remains Roma, with which he recently renewed his contract until 2030. "If I could, I would have signed an even longer contract," he recently said. In reality, the negotiation wasn't all roses and flowers, and Ranieri's intervention in his new role as a director proved decisive in unblocking it.

The numbers of Svilar

In the first two official matches of the new season, Svilar made a couple of decisive saves (the one on Meister in Pisa, on the first ball touched, was miraculous), showed his usual disarming confidence in leading the defense, and above all kept a clean sheet. In last season's Serie A, he had 15 clean sheets in 35 games and 111 interventions, of which 61 were on shots from inside the box. His average of one save every 28 minutes attracted the interest of several clubs that hoped to step into the contract stalemate. But Svilar stayed and has already started again with his good old habits.