Miloš Ninković ( sr-Cyrl, Милош Нинковић; born 25 December 1984) is a

Serbia Serbia (, ; Serbian: , , ), officially the Republic of Serbia ( Serbian: , , ), is a landlocked country in Southeastern and Central Europe, situated at the crossroads of the Pannonian Basin and the Balkans. It shares land borders with Hu ...

n footballer who currently plays for

A-League A-League Men (known as the Isuzu UTE A-League for sponsorship reasons) is the highest-level professional men's soccer league in Australia and New Zealand. At the top of the Australian league system, it is the country's premier men's competiti ...

club

Western Sydney Wanderers Western Sydney Wanderers Football Club (colloquially known as Western Sydney, or simply as Wanderers) is an Australian professional soccer club based in the Western Sydney region of Sydney, New South Wales. It competes in the country's premier ...

Club career

Čukarički

At a young age Ninković joined

FK Čukarički Fudbalski klub Čukarički () is a Serbian professional football club from Belgrade, more precisely from the Čukarica municipality, that currently plays in the Serbian SuperLiga, the top tier of Serbian football. Founded in 1926, the club sp ...

's youth academy and later graduated into the club's first-team. He left Čukarički as a teenager to join Dynamo Kyiv.

Dynamo Kyiv

At the age of 19, he initially struggled for playing time in Dynamo. He gradually became a mainstay of the side, helping them win the Ukrainian Premier League three times and the domestic cup twice. The performances were noticed by Serbia's (now former) national team coach

Radomir Antić Radomir Antić ( sr-Cyrl, Радомир Антић, ; 22 November 1948 – 6 April 2020) was a Serbian professional football manager and player. Following a 17-year playing career as a defender, most of which he spent playing at Partizan, wi ...

, and he has since become a regular for the Serbian national team. In the 2010–11 season, Ninković was considered one of Dynamo's most crucial and talented players. Some team mates described Ninković having an "eye for goal" and being a very optimistic footballer.

Évian

In December 2012 it was announced that the last six months of Ninković's contract, which expires June 2013, was to be spent on loan with French club

Évian Evian ( , ; , stylized as evian) is a French company that bottles and commercialises mineral water from several sources near Évian-les-Bains, on the south shore of Lake Geneva. It produces over 2 billion plastic bottles per year. Today, Evi ...

. Ninković initially was negotiating a transfer to

Red Star Belgrade Fudbalski klub Crvena zvezda ( sr-Cyrl, Фудбалски клуб Црвена звезда, lit=Red Star Football Club, ), commonly known as Red Star Belgrade in English-language media, is a Serbian professional football club based in Be ...

, but was denied the possibility to shorten his contract with Dynamo from June 2013 to January 2013. Over a week after his loan spell to Évian was announced, Ninković told B92 that Red Star remained a fallback option for him, suggesting an eventual transfer to Red Star Belgrade after his contract and loan expire in June 2013.

Red Star Belgrade

On 4 July 2013, Ninković signed a one-year contract with an option for one additional year with

. Ninković's scored his first goals for Red Star on 17 August 2013, when he scored a brace against

FK Jagodina Fudbalski klub Jagodina () is a Serbian professional football club based in the city of Jagodina, which plays in the Serbian First League, the second tier in Serbia's football league. The club was founded in 1919 under the name ''JSK Zora'', jus ...

Sydney FC

On 16 July 2015, Ninković signed a two-year contract with

Sydney FC Sydney Football Club is an Australian professional soccer club based in Sydney, New South Wales. It competes in the country's premier men's competition, A-League Men, under licence from Australian Professional Leagues (APL). The club was f ...

. Ninković scored the match-winning goal in the 88th minute of the tenth Sydney Derby to win the game for Sydney FC and put them at then the top of the table in round three of the 2015/16 season. During round 13 of the 2015/16 season, Ninković scored a brace in a 2–2 draw against Melbourne City. Ninković enjoyed a good start to the 2016–17 A-League season, scoring 6 times, and with 7 assists within the space of 13 games. The playmaker backed up this form for the rest of the season, winning eleven Man of the Match awards resulting in claiming the Alex Tobin Medal for season's best player from

Fox Sports Australia Fox Sports Australia Pty Limited (formerly Premier Media Group Pty Limited) is the division of Foxtel that owns and operates the Fox Sports television networks and digital properties in Australia. The group operates nine Fox Sports Channels as w ...

. Ninković also won the Johnny Warren Medal for the 2016–17 season, becoming the first Sydney FC player to ever do so. He scored the winning penalty in the

2017 A-League Grand Final The 2017 A-League Grand Final was the twelfth A-League Grand Final, and was played on 7 May 2017, at Allianz Stadium in Sydney. The match was contested between Sydney FC and Melbourne Victory who finished the 2016–17 season first and second ...

shoot-out for

, securing them a third championship and ensuring him cult status. On 9 May 2017, Ninković was re-signed by

for another year as their new international marquee. Following a premiership winning season, it was announced that Ninkovic had re-signed for a further two-year deal. On 21 June 2022, it was announced on the club's website that Ninković decided to leave Sydney FC, ending his seven years association with the club.

Western Sydney Wanderers

It was announced on the 3rd of July 2022 that Ninković had joined arch rivals the

, signing a one year deal, ahead of the upcoming season. The move was met with controversy, with British newspaper

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers '' The Observer'' and '' The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the ...

described him "as a mercenary, who thrown away his connection with the Sky Blues’ faithful, will likely permeate the fanbase", while his former teammate

Alex Brosque Alex Jason Brosque (; born 12 October 1983) is an Australian former professional footballer who was the captain of A-League club Sydney FC. He played primarily as a striker but played predominantly as a midfielder in central midfield during his ...

said the move was a "slap in the face" to both clubs and criticised all those involved in a transfer, saying it should never have happened. On 12 November 2022, Ninković made his first Sydney Derby appearance for the Wanderers, in which he was the subject of a pre-match tifo from The Cove criticising his decision to join the Wanderers; the tifo read ‘LEGENDS ARE CHERISHED. TRAITORS’ LEGACIES WILL PERISH’, along with depictions of club greats

Steve Corica Stephen Christopher Corica ( born 24 March 1973) is an Australian association football manager and former player. He is the current manager of Australian club Sydney FC. A technically gifted and skillful attacking midfielder during his playing ...

Rhyan Grant Rhyan Bert Grant (born 26 February 1991) is an Australian professional football player who plays for A-League club Sydney FC and the Australia national team. Born in Canowindra, New South Wales, Grant played youth football at the Australian I ...

and

as knights in shining armour, with Ninković's old No. 10 jersey being burned in the background. In the first Sydney Derby played at the reconstructed

Sydney Football Stadium The Sydney Football Stadium, commercially known as Allianz Stadium and previously Aussie Stadium, was a football stadium in Moore Park, Sydney, Australia. Built in 1988 next to the Sydney Cricket Ground, the stadium was Sydney's premier recta ...

, and in front of a crowd of 34,232, the biggest Sydney Derby crowd since 2017, the Wanderers achieved their first Sydney Derby win at the Sydney Football Stadium in 3304 days, winning 1–0 through a

Kusini Yengi Kusini Yengi (born 15 January 1999) is an Australian professional soccer player who plays as a striker for the Western Sydney Wanderers. Early life Yengi was born in Adelaide to Ben, a refugee advocate born in what is now South Sudan who emigr ...

goal in the 70th minute, with Ninković providing the assist.

International career

Ninković made his maiden appearance for the Serbian national team in 2009 against

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden,The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names states that the country's formal name is the Kingdom of SwedenUNGEGN World Geographical Names, Sweden./ref> is a Nordic countries, Nordic c ...

. He was a member of Serbia's 2010 FIFA World Cup squad. Having been benched in the match against

Ghana Ghana (; tw, Gaana, ee, Gana), officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country in West Africa. It abuts the Gulf of Guinea and the Atlantic Ocean to the south, sharing borders with Ivory Coast in the west, Burkina Faso in the north, and Tog ...

, he was in Serbia's starting XI against

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwee ...

and

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands. With an area of , Australia is the largest country by ...

Personal life

Ninković became an Australian citizen in November 2022. He is married to Dejana, whom he met at a student party, and has three children, a son and two daughters.

Career statistics

Club

International

Honours

Club

Dynamo Kyiv *

Ukrainian Premier League The Ukrainian Premier League ( uk, "Українська Прем'єр-ліга", ''Ukrayinska Premier Liha'') or UPL is the highest division of Ukrainian annual football championship. As the Vyshcha Liha ( uk, Вища ліга, ''Top League' ...

: 2006–07, 2008–09 * Ukrainian Cup: 2004–05, 2005–06, 2006–07 *

Ukrainian Super Cup The Ukrainian Super Cup ( uk , Суперкубок України) is an association football game of the Ukrainian Premier League in traditional super cup format that acts as the grand-opening for every new football competition season in Ukr ...

2006 File:2006 Events Collage V1.png, From top left, clockwise: The 2006 Winter Olympics open in Turin; Twitter is founded and launched by Jack Dorsey; The Nintendo Wii is released; Montenegro votes to declare independence from Serbia; The 2006 ...

2007 File:2007 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Steve Jobs unveils Apple Inc., Apple's first iPhone (1st generation), iPhone; TAM Airlines Flight 3054 overruns a runway and crashes into a gas station, killing almost 200 people; Former Pakis ...

2009 File:2009 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: The vertical stabilizer of Air France Flight 447 is pulled out from the Atlantic Ocean; Barack Obama becomes the first African American to become President of the United States; Protests ...

2011 File:2011 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: a protester partaking in Occupy Wall Street heralds the beginning of the Occupy movement; protests against Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, who was killed that October; a young man celebrates ...

Red Star *

Serbian SuperLiga The Serbian Super League ( sr, Супер лига Србије / Super liga Srbije), referred to as the Mozzart Bet Super League ( sr, Моцарт Бет Супер лига / Mozzart Bet Super liga) for sponsorship reasons, is a Serbian profes ...

: 2013–14 Sydney FC * A-League Premiership: 2016–17, 2017–18, 2019–20 * A-League Championship: 2016–17, 2018–19, 2019–20 *

FFA Cup The Australia Cup, formerly known as the FFA Cup until the 2021 season, is the national football knockout cup competition in Australia. This annual competition is organised by Football Australia, formerly known as Football Federation Austral ...

2017 File:2017 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: The War Against ISIS at the Battle of Mosul (2016-2017); aftermath of the Manchester Arena bombing; The Solar eclipse of August 21, 2017 ("Great American Eclipse"); North Korea tests a s ...

Individual

* Johnny Warren Medal: 2016–17,

2020–21 The dash is a punctuation mark consisting of a long horizontal line. It is similar in appearance to the hyphen but is longer and sometimes higher from the baseline. The most common versions are the endash , generally longer than the hyphen b ...

* PFA A-League Team of the Season: 2016–17, 2017–18, 2018–19, 2019–20,

Joe Marston Medal The Joe Marston Medal is an A-League award given to the player of the match in the A-League Grand Final each year. Introduced in 1990, previously the award was also given to the best player in the National Soccer League grand final. The medal is ...

2019 File:2019 collage v1.png, From top left, clockwise: Hong Kong protests turn to widespread riots and civil disobedience; House of Representatives votes to adopt articles of impeachment against Donald Trump; CRISPR gene editing first used to experim ...

* A-Leagues All Star:

2022 File:2022 collage V1.png, Clockwise, from top left: Road junction at Yamato-Saidaiji Station several hours after the assassination of Shinzo Abe; Anti-government protest in Sri Lanka in front of the Presidential Secretariat; The global monkeypo ...

References

External links

Ninković's profile at Dynamo's official website
*

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Ninkovic, Milos 1984 births Living people Footballers from Belgrade Serbian footballers Serbia international footballers Serbia and Montenegro footballers Serbian expatriate footballers Serbia and Montenegro expatriate footballers Association football midfielders FK Čukarički players FC Dynamo Kyiv players FC Dynamo-2 Kyiv players Thonon Evian Grand Genève F.C. players Red Star Belgrade footballers Members of the Assembly of KK Crvena zvezda Sydney FC players Western Sydney Wanderers FC players Ukrainian Premier League players Ukrainian First League players Ligue 1 players A-League Men players 2010 FIFA World Cup players Expatriate footballers in Ukraine Expatriate footballers in France Expatriate soccer players in Australia Serbia and Montenegro expatriate sportspeople in Ukraine Serbian expatriate sportspeople in Ukraine Serbian expatriate sportspeople in France Serbian expatriate sportspeople in Australia Marquee players (A-League Men)