Serbia v Scotland: How daunting a proposition are Euro 2020 play-off final opponents?

A Euro 2020 play-off final with Scotland isn't exciting enough to knock Serbia's greatest sports star off the back pages of the country's newspapers the day before the game.

If 17-time Grand Slam champion Novak Djokovic speaks, no matter the subject, he is the news. Then, once you get past Belgrade's tennis behemoth, you'll get the latest basketball updates.

But keep flicking, and Scotland's biggest match in 13 years comes into view eventually.

That is unimaginable here, particularly on the eve of such an epoch-making event. Andy Murray has to win Wimbledon to obliterate football from the back pages.

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The challenge facing Steve Clarke and his players is borne out by the bookmakers. According to them, out of all eight Euro 2020 play-off finalists, Scotland are the least likely to make the finals next summer.

That is a stark warning for a side that is unbeaten in eight games and on a run of four successive victories, including the semi-final penalty shoot-out victory over Israel.

Serbia have not yet qualified for a European Championship so are aiming for a slice of history themselves. They have however, reached three World Cups - including the most recent in 2018 - since the Scots last kicked a ball at a major tournament.

Looking at the Serbian squad evokes memories of Gordon Strachan's controversial "genetic" comments at his final media conference as Scotland manager, when enviously cast his eyes over the "height and strength" of the Slovenia players who had just scuppered his World Cup play-off hopes.

The Serbs have both of those traits in spades. They also have the backbone of a side that has won a European Championship and a World Cup.

In 2013, goalkeeper Predrag Rajkovic, Sergej Milinkovic-Savic, Mijat Gacinovic, Nemanja Maksimovic and Aleksandr Mitrovic all won the Under-19 Euros in Lithuania, before going on to do similar at the Under-20 World Cup in New Zealand two years later, beating France and Brazil respectively to do so.

They were all in the squad in Russia in 2018 for the senior version.

Lazio's Milinkovic-Savic scored both goals, including an extra-time winner, to inflict a rare home defeat on Norway in the semi final. It was a game that was played like the basketball matches they so enjoy in Serbia, incomparable to Scotland's nerve-shredder against Israel in Glasgow.

A back injury may yet discount veteran Inter Milan and former Manchester City defender Aleksandar Kolarov, with Filip Duricic - who scored both in Serbia's victory over Strachan's team in 2013 - absent with Covid-19.

Discounting the win over a ramshackle Czech Republic in the Nations League and an, albeit impressive, victory in Croatia in 2013 when qualification had already evaded them, Scotland's last meaningful away win over a team ranked above them was against France in Paris in 2007.

A similar backs-to-the-wall performance may be required against Serbia's "Eagles".

Players to watch

Dusan Tadic

The Ajax playmaker was man of the match when his club destroyed Real Madrid's Champions League stranglehold two seasons ago by overturning a last-16 first-leg deficit by thrashing the three-in-a-row winners 4-1 in the Bernabeu.

His performance that night, assisting twice and scoring himself, was befitting of anything Ronaldinho, Zidane, Ronaldo and Messi have conjured up before him on that stage in recent years.

Sergej Milinkovic-Savic

The powerhouse Lazio midfielder is the reason the Serbs - not Norway - are Scotland's opponents. Although he started on the bench in Oslo, his first two international goals put his country into this final and were quickly followed with another against Turkey in the Nations League draw the following week.

Aleksandar Mitrovic

The Fulham striker has as good an international goalscoring return as anyone, with 36 goals in 59 caps. While he has struggled to affect the London club's first season back in the English top flight, he will be a huge threat to the Scotland defence.

It will have crossed Steve Clarke's mind that out of all the defenders at his disposal, Leeds captain Liam Cooper has faced Mitrovic three times in the last year.