Ajax Signs Serbian Enfant Terrible Marko Pantelic

Ajax have bolstered their attack by signing Serbian journeyman striker Marko Pantelic. The 30-year-old forward was given the No. 9 jersey during his presentation in Amsterdam this afternoon, and is expected to play upfront with Ajax' Uruguayan skipper and prodigy Luis Suarez.

The forward was transfer-free after leaving Hertha BSC during the summer and was one of three new signings the Amsterdam club made today.

Kerlon joined on loan from Internazionale and Ze Eduardo joined on loan from Cruzeiro, but both are not expected to have the same impact on the club as Pantelic.

Unlike the other two signings, Pantelic is not a young and upcoming talent, but a seasoned professional. The Serbian forward made his debut in professional football at the age of 16 in Greece and has since then played in France, Switzerland, Serbia, Spain, Austria, and Germany.

Ajax bought themselves a flair player. Pantelic is a skilled technician, a player with superb dribbling skills, he is strong in the air, and he has that oh-so-important killer instinct all good forwards need.

Does that sound too good to be true?

I heard people saying this during his presentation and it made me suspicious. I wonder why he hadn't found a new club sooner if he could do all that...He's not that old and his wage demands weren't that excessive.

I mean, he'd been playing in the Bundesliga so he wouldn't be cheap, but surely he would not be demanding Ronaldo-esque figures to be deposited into his bank account.

I regularly try to watch the Sportschau and here are some things I noticed on top of the facts which were stated during his presentation.

Pantelic may be a skilled technician but he loves to showboat, which needlessly slows play down.

On top of that, he's a very selfish forward, one who only has eye for the goal. In its-self, this is an admirable trait for a player who is expected to score goals, but when a player completely ignores teammates in a better position to try a shot from a much more difficult angle, it means you're taking it a step too far as a striker.

Besides this behaviour on the pitch, Pantelic can be a bit of a bad boy off the pitch, clashing with managers, officials or just disappearing without a trace. Whilst playing for Yverdon in Switzerland, he once vanished three weeks without a trace [1], whilst he clashed with referees [2] and manager Lucien Favre at Hertha [3].

Whilst his qualities as a footballer are quite obvious, his flaws and weaknesses as a person are too.

It should be interesting to see whether or not Marko Pantelic manages to adapt to Ajax and his new teammates. Or should I say, it should be interesting to see whether or not Ajax and its squad manage to adapt to Marko Pantelic?

Sources

[1] http://www.spiegel.de/sport/fussball/0,1518,372423,00.html

[2] https://www.11freunde.de/forum/6/1204966797

[3] http://www.welt.de/welt_print/article2653240/Pantelic-trifft-aber-Trainer-Favre-will-ihn-loswerden.html