Fulham coach Marco Silva provided an insight into Aleksandar Mitrovic’s state of mind after his heroics on international duty.
Almost a year to the day after missing a penalty in Serbia’s European Championship Play-Off shoot-out with Scotland, Mitro popped up with a 90th minute winner against Portugal to book his nation’s place at the 2022 World Cup.
“As you’d expect, he’s in a good place,” Silva said in Friday’s pre-Barnsley press conference. “He’s in a special place, he’s in a very good mood with very high confidence, and all of us congratulate him.
“Everyone remembers what happened one year ago, and that’s football. When you have bad moments, if you do things right and people keep believing in you, and if you keep working hard, things can change.
“I think he’s a good example for everyone, to think that when you’re in a bad place, if you have the quality and desire, the commitment and the confidence, and if the people around you support you, then things can change.
“Mitro is a good example of how in 12 months, everything can change, and he deserves this moment in his career.
“But he knows that I believe he can do more and more and more, and I know that he wants to do more.”
Barnsley come to Craven Cottage on Saturday having this week appointed a new Head Coach in Poya Asbaghi.
The former Sweden Under-21 boss will not be in charge for the match, but Silva insists his side will be concentrating on their own game, regardless of who’s in the opposition dugout.
“The main focus for us will be ourselves,” he explained. “We know that they changed the manager, who will possibly be in the stands at the game. We don’t know but that’s not the important thing for us.
“As always, we analysed some moments from them and some of their games, but the main thing is always to focus on ourselves. There are some things that we’ve worked on, the players go into the match knowing everything they should do.
“For me and my players, we know that the next one is always the most important game for us. Always, always, always.
“Tomorrow’s match is very important. I’m not saying that it will be more important than Peterborough, or be more important than the next one, but it’s really, really important for us to play with 100% focus, to start the game really strongly.
“For us it doesn’t matter if they come from a good result or not, we still respect them as a club. As always, we look to ourselves and what we can do in the game.”