Strahinja Eraković ( sr-Cyrl, Страхиња Ераковић; born 22 January 2001) is a Serbian professional

footballer A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby lea ...

who plays as a

centre-back In the sport of association football, a defender is an outfield player whose primary role is to stop attacks during the game and prevent the opposition from scoring. Defenders fall into four main categories: centre-backs, full-backs, sweepers ...

for

Russian Premier League The Russian Premier League (RPL; , ''Rossiyskaya premyer-liga''; РПЛ), also written as Russian Premier Liga, is a professional association football league in Russia and the highest level of the Russian football league system. It was establis ...

club

Zenit Saint Petersburg Football Club Zenit (, ), also known as Zenit Saint Petersburg or simply Zenit, is a Russian professional football club based in Saint Petersburg. Founded in 1925 (or in 1914, according to some Russian sources), the club plays in the Russian Pr ...

and the Serbia national team.

Club career

Red Star Belgrade

Eraković joined Red Star Belgrade in 2010 at the age of nine. He played for every youth category for the Belgrade club{{User-generate and was the captain of the Under-19 side. Eraković represented the club in

UEFA Youth League The UEFA Youth League is an annual club football competition organised by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) since 2013. In its current format, it is contested by the under-19 teams of the clubs competing in the UEFA Champions Le ...

, playing matches against

Napoli Naples ( ; ; ) is the regional capital of Campania and the third-largest city of Italy, after Rome and Milan, with a population of 908,082 within the city's administrative limits as of 2025, while its province-level municipality is the thir ...

and

Paris Saint-Germain Paris Saint-Germain Football Club, commonly referred to as Paris Saint-Germain () or simply PSG, is a French professional Association football, football club based in Paris. They compete in Ligue 1, the French football league system, top d ...

. Eraković made his first-team debut for Red Star Belgrade on 1 August 2020 in a

Superliga Superliga (''super league'') may refer to: Sports Superliga can refer to different sports leagues: Association football *Albanian Superliga, the Albanian top-flight men's division * Argentine Superliga, the Argentine top-flight men's division *D ...

match against

Novi Pazar Novi Pazar ( sr-cyr, Нови Пазар) is a List of cities in Serbia, city located in the Raška District of southwestern Serbia. As of the 2022 census, the urban area has 71,462 inhabitants, while the city administrative area has 106,720 inha ...

. Despite being just 19, he quickly became a regular footballer for the champions of Serbia. In his first season, Eraković played against

Hoffenheim Hoffenheim () is a village in Rhein-Neckar-Kreis, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It belongs to the municipality of Sinsheim and, as of 2020, it has a population of 3,191. History The village, settled since prehistoric times, and first mentioned ...

Gent Gent is a shortened form of the word gentleman. It may also refer to: * Ghent ( Dutch: Gent), a Belgian city ** K.A.A. Gent, a football club from Ghent ** K.R.C. Gent, a football club from Ghent ** Gent RFC, a rugby club in Ghent ** .gent, ...

and

Slovan Liberec FC Slovan Liberec (), commonly referred to as Slovan Liberec or simply Slovan, is a Czech professional association football, football club based in the city of Liberec. The club is one of the most successful in the Czech Republic, having won thr ...

in the

UEFA Europa League The UEFA Europa League (UEL), usually known simply as the Europa League, is an annual association football, football club competition organised since 1971 by the UEFA, Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) for eligible European footb ...

. He was a part of the Red Star Belgrade club that won the first league and cup double after a 14-year wait. In the 2021–22 season, Eraković became one of the most important players for the club and ranked among the players with most minutes spent on the pitch. He was a first-team regular in European competition as well, playing against

Braga Braga (; ) is a cities of Portugal, city and a Municipalities of Portugal, municipality, capital of the northwestern Portugal, Portuguese Braga (district), district of Braga and of the historical and cultural Minho Province. Braga Municipality ...

Midtjylland The Central Denmark Region (), or more directly translated as the Central Jutland Region and sometimes simply Mid-Jutland, is an administrative region of Denmark established on 1 January 2007 as part of the 2007 Danish municipal reform. The refo ...

and

Ludogorets Professional Football Club Ludogorets 1945 (), commonly known as Ludogorets Razgrad or simply Ludogorets, is a Bulgarian professional association football club based in Razgrad, which currently competes in the First Professional Football League, ...

in the Europa League group stage. He captained the side in the away match at Ludogorets. Red Star Belgrade qualified for the competition's knockout stage and Eraković played in both legs as Red Star Belgrade bowed out of the competition with a 4–2 aggregate defeat against

Rangers FC Rangers Football Club is a professional football club in Glasgow, Scotland. The team competes in the Scottish Premiership, the top division of Scottish football. The club is often referred to as Glasgow Rangers, though this has never been it ...

of Scotland. Eraković played as Red Star Belgrade secured back-to-back Superliga and Kup Srbije doubles. At the start of the 2022–23 season, Eraković signed a new contract to remain at Red Star Belgrade until June 2026.

Loan to Grafičar

Eraković spent the 2019–20 season playing for RFK Grafičar, Red Star Belgrade's affiliate club in the Prva liga Srbije, the second tier of Serbian football. Eraković appeared in 21 games and scored two goals for Grafičar.

Zenit Saint Petersburg

On 23 July 2023, Eraković agreed to join Russian champions

on a four-year contract, with the option to extend for another year.

International career

Eraković was eligible to represent

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

via his mother, who has Australian citizenship, but he rejected the offer.{{Bare URL inline, date=June 2025 Having been captain of all Serbian youth national teams, Eraković debuted for the Serbian senior squad in a

2022–23 UEFA Nations League The 2022–23 UEFA Nations League was the third season of the UEFA Nations League, an international association football competition involving the men's national teams of the 55 member associations of UEFA. The competition was held from June to Se ...

match against Norway. In November 2022, he was selected in Serbia's squad for the

2022 FIFA World Cup The 2022 FIFA World Cup was the 22nd FIFA World Cup, the quadrennial world championship for national football teams organized by FIFA. It took place in Qatar from 20 November to 18 December 2022, after the country was awarded the hosting ri ...

in Qatar, but did not appear in any match.

Career statistics

Club

{{updated, match played 24 May 2025 {, class="wikitable" style="text-align:center" , + Appearances and goals by club, season and competition , - !rowspan="2", Club !rowspan="2", Season !colspan="3", League !colspan="2", National cup{{efn, Includes

Serbian Cup The Serbian Cup ( Serbian: Куп Србије / Kup Srbije), also known as Mozzart Serbian Cup for sponsorship reasons, is the national football cup of Serbia. The winner of the competition gets a spot in the UEFA Europa League qualifying round. ...

, Russian Cup !colspan="2", Europe !colspan="2", Other !colspan="2", Total , - !Division!!Apps!!Goals!!Apps!!Goals!!Apps!!Goals!!Apps!!Goals!!Apps!!Goals , - , Grafičar Beograd (loan) , 2019–20 ,

Serbian First League The Serbian First League (), referred to as the Mozzart Bet First League for sponsorship reasons, is the second tier in professional Serbia's football league. The league was formed in 2005, following a reshuffle of the second tier Serbo-Montenegr ...

, , 21, , 2, , 0, , 0, , colspan="2", —, , colspan="2", —, , 21, , 2 , - , rowspan="4",

Red Star Belgrade Fudbalski klub Crvena zvezda ( sr-cyrl, Фудбалски клуб Црвена звезда, lit=Red Star Football Club), commonly referred to as Crvena zvezda () and colloquially referred to as Red Star Belgrade in anglophone media, is a ...

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 ...

Serbian SuperLiga The Serbian Super League (), also known as Mozzart SuperLiga for sponsorship reasons, is a professional association football league in Serbia and the highest level of the Serbian football league system. Contested by 16 clubs, it operates on a sys ...

, 13, , 0, , 2, , 0, , 4, , 0, , colspan="2", —, , 19, , 0 , - , 2021–22 , Serbian SuperLiga , 33, , 0, , 2, , 0, , 6, , 0, , colspan="2", —, , 41, , 0 , - ,

2022–23 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 ...

, Serbian SuperLiga , 33, , 0, , 0, , 0, , 10, , 0, , colspan="2", —, , 43, , 0 , - !colspan="2", Total !79!!0!!4!!0!!20!!0!!colspan="2", —!!103!!0 , - , rowspan="3", Zenit , 2023–24 ,

, 27, , 0, , 10, , 0, , colspan="2", —, , colspan="2", —, , 37, , 0 , - , 2024–25 , Russian Premier League , 22, , 0, , 6, , 0, , colspan="2", —, , 1{{efn, name=RSC, Appearance in

Russian Super Cup The Russian Super Cup () is a one-match football (soccer), football annual competition. Its official sponsored name is ''OLIMPBET Russian Supercup'' (). The two participating clubs are the Russian Premier League champions and the Rambler Russian ...

, , 0, , 29, , 0 , - !colspan="2", Total !49!!0!!16!!0!!colspan="2", —!!1!!0!!66!!0 , - !colspan="3", Career total !149!!2!!20!!0!!20!!0!!1!!0!!190!!2 {{notelist

International

{{updated, 7 June 2025 {, class="wikitable" style="text-align:center" , + Appearances and goals by national team and year , - !National team!!Year!!Apps!!Goals , - , rowspan="4",

Serbia , image_flag = Flag of Serbia.svg , national_motto = , image_coat = Coat of arms of Serbia.svg , national_anthem = () , image_map = , map_caption = Location of Serbia (gree ...

, 2022, , 2, , 0 , - , 2023, , 4, , 1 , - , 2024, , 6, , 0 , - , 2025, , 3, , 0 , - !colspan="2", Total!!15!!1 :''Scores and results list Serbia's goal tally first.'' {, class="wikitable" ! No. !! Date !! Venue !! Cap !! Opponent !! Score !! Result !! Competition , - , 1. , , 16 June 2023, ,

Franz Horr Stadium The Franz Horr Stadium, formally known as Generali Arena for sponsorship reasons and Viola Park for international matches, is an association football stadium in the south of Vienna, Austria. It has been the home ground of FK Austria Wien since ...

Vienna Vienna ( ; ; ) is the capital city, capital, List of largest cities in Austria, most populous city, and one of Federal states of Austria, nine federal states of Austria. It is Austria's primate city, with just over two million inhabitants. ...

, Austria , , align=center, 5 , , {{fb, JOR , , align=center , 1–0 , , align=center , 3–2 , , Friendly

Honours

Red Star Belgrade *

, 2021–22,

Zenit Saint Petersburg *

: 2023–24 * Russian Cup: 2023–24 *

2024 The year saw the list of ongoing armed conflicts, continuation of major armed conflicts, including the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Myanmar civil war (2021–present), Myanmar civil war, the Sudanese civil war (2023–present), Sudane ...

Individual *

Team of the Season:

Young Player of the Season:

{{cite web , url=https://www.mozzartsport.com/fudbal/vesti/najbolji-mladi-igrac-mozzart-bet-superlige-strahinja-erakovic/452934, title=Najbolji mladi igrač Mozzart Bet Superlige – Strahinja Eraković, website=Mozzart Sport, date=2 June 2023, access-date=2 June 2023, language=sr

References

{{Reflist

External links

* {{UEFA player, 250107718 * {{Soccerway, strahinja-erakovi/517411 * {{Soccerbase, 114656 * {{WorldFootball.net, strahinja-erakovic * {{BDFutbol, 1068920 {{FC Zenit Saint Petersburg squad {{Serbia squad 2022 FIFA World Cup {{DEFAULTSORT:Erakovic, Strahinja 2001 births Living people Footballers from Belgrade Men's association football central defenders Serbian men's footballers Serbia men's under-21 international footballers Serbia men's youth international footballers Serbia men's international footballers 2022 FIFA World Cup players RFK Grafičar Beograd players Red Star Belgrade footballers FC Zenit Saint Petersburg players Serbian First League players Serbian SuperLiga players Russian Premier League players Serbian expatriate men's footballers Expatriate men's footballers in Russia Serbian expatriate sportspeople in Russia Australian people of Serbian descent