Last season everything failed due to administration - Petrovac is preparing for a new European test in Antalya

The Petrovac management failed the exam last season, now they are ready to improve it.

A place on the European stage, led by a team led by a coach Zdravko Dragićević achieved on the field, was not followed by obtaining a UEFA license, so it was all in vain - a great loss for the club, the coaching staff, the players, several hundred thousand less in the coffers.

This year, the people of Petrovac are determined to make up for lost time.

- All the paperwork has already been completed, long before time, the club's management has done its part of the work, everyone is delighted that it could be done so quickly - says Dragićević.

What follows is what is in his job description, and of course the footballer's: to earn a place on the European stage again on the field and enable the club to correct itself.

The mitigating circumstance - Montenegro has one more representative on the international stage this coming summer (four in total) than in the previous one. The aggravating circumstance - the team from Petrovac is not second in the standings, like last winter, but fifth, one position “below the line”.

- Qualifying for Europe is our absolute goal in the spring and we will do everything to achieve it - adds Dragićević.

For the second winter in a row, his team is preparing in Antalya, strengthened by the arrival of three new football players.

- Bringing Marko Roganović, Nemanja Belaković i Boban Djordjevic was our priority, we based ourselves on them from the beginning and those were the wishes that we managed to achieve. I can even say that with their arrival the transfer window is over for us, of course unless some extra reinforcements appear - says Dragićević.

The team from Petrovac is also playing friendly matches in Antalya, having already played three of them, and the victory over the Korean giants Gwangju, the team whose jersey is worn by Montenegrin national team player Marko Tući (1:0), resonated.

- That game is a benchmark for how the team should play in the coming period. The result aside, we may have exceeded our current, objective possibilities, but it's certainly nice to win, for self-confidence. A kind of signpost - says Petrovac's coach.

Aside from the victory, there was also the defeat, which came yesterday against Kyrgyzstan's Aziagol (0:3).

- The players who played were mostly players who had played less against Gwangju, and besides that they left a good impression, especially the young ones. factories, Tesovic i Balević. They literally gave us goals from our mistakes, I would say childhood illnesses.

Dragićević notes another positive thing:

- Return Episode back on the field after five months out due to a muscle injury. That could be a big plus before spring.

For the second winter in a row, Petrovac is in Antalya, in the style of real clubs that know what they want and how to reach their goal.

- International preparations mean a lot to us, especially friendly matches with teams that are perhaps a step ahead of us - to see what we are missing, what we need to work on, how much the game needs to speed up - concludes Dragićević.

Petrovac is, along with Buducnost and Sutjeska, the biggest teams, the only first-league team that has not been relegated from the Montenegrin football elite since 2006.