THE KING OF CRAVEN COTTAGE
Think Mitrovic is a loose cannon? Think again. The Serbia hitman loves nothing more than a game of chess!
ALEKSANDAR Mitrovic is thinking of a secret, challenged to reveal something about him we don’t know. He told Sportsmail several years ago of a childhood regret, when he threw rocks at a train and smashed the driver’s window. The anecdote captured all we thought we knew about the Serb. A loose cannon. A hothead. This, then, is a surprise. ‘I love to play chess,’ Mitrovic says. ‘My father was a champion, one of the best in the country.’
He pretends to move chess pieces in front of him while looking over his shoulder.
‘This was my father, he could play without even looking. He had a thick book with all the combinations. He knew every move.
‘I have never even played him, he is too good!’
Mitrovic the boy preferred footballs and rocks — which doubled as artillery and goalposts — as opposed to knights and bishops.
Now, at 25, he gets his kicks throwing moves on a chequered board.
‘I play most nights before I go to bed, with my wife or online. I love it. Just you and your mind, trying to predict things to win the game, to see how it is going to play.
‘I can play with you now and we don’t need to talk, we talk on the board. I try to read you, see what you’re going to do.’
Mitrovic is enjoying his best ever season with 29 goals for Fulham and Serbia. He is also the Championship’s top scorer. Has the chess helped?
‘It really relaxes me, but also it teaches you to anticipate, to think. As a striker, that is everything.’
There is a serenity about Mitrovic now that you would never have imagined when he was sent off 16 minutes into his first home start for Newcastle in 2015.
Does he even remember his last red card?
‘I don’t. It must be at Newcastle?’
Correct. On the final day of the 2015-16 season as they were relegated.
‘So I’ve only been sent off once since I had children?’ Again, correct. ‘You see, it’s calmed me, I’ve matured. When I came to Newcastle, I was just a boy.’
Mitrovic’s screensaver is of his young family. Earlier, his threeyear-old son, Luka, was playing on the pitches here at Fulham’s training ground. He also has a daughter, two-year-old Nada.
‘Having a girl has made me a bit softer! But she is tough. If she doesn’t get what she wants, she’ll punch or kick to let you know! ‘I think she got my aggression…’ Mitrovic is happy. The last time we sat down, in 2017, he was not.
‘I remember,’ he says. ‘We sat on the hotel steps? In Dublin?’
That was at Newcastle’s preseason training camp and, even then, he knew Rafa Benitez did not rate him. He finished that campaign on loan at Fulham, firing them to the Premier League before making a permanent move for an initial fee of £22million.
‘If you feel down, get up. This is what life is about. My father taught me, “After rain, the sun always comes out”.
‘I had a real rainy period at Newcastle. Now, it’s really sunny. But when it’s going well, this is the time to push even harder.’
During our previous interview, Mitrovic revealed a technique for controlling his temper. It was as simple as counting to 10. He was, at the time, able to make six, seven at a push.
‘I think now I can get to eight, sometimes nine. I don’t think I will ever be on 10!’
Nor does he want to be. After all, the terrace chant ‘Mitro’s on fire, your defence is terrified’ is not sung in appreciation of a mild-mannered frontman. And that edge of his is apparent when we talk of his worth.
Sasa Curcic — his friend and fellow Serb, once of Aston Villa and Crystal Palace — told us last year that Mitrovic was a £50m striker who should be playing for one of Europe’s top clubs. Mitrovic laughs, but does not disagree.
‘I hope I’m worth more! You see now, every player who scores two goals is worth £50m! So why not? I have 21 goals.’
I remind him they are goals he has scored in the Championship. Can he cut it in the Premier League?
‘People forget I have a good record in the Premier League — 21 goals over two seasons in teams that were relegated is not easy.
‘There will always be people with negativity. I don’t listen. I have my goals, that is how I will prove myself. It’s why I play football.
‘I don’t enjoy passing, running, fighting... goals are my obsession. Only strikers understand that.’
Fulham boss Scott Parker spoke recently of Mitrovic’s leadership qualities, and you can see that respect in the eyes of the academy players who file by us.
‘I can feel everybody looking at me, the way I train, the way I play. They expect me to make things happen. It’s a new experience for me. When I came to Newcastle I was very young. The period I needed to settle in… I didn’t have one. I was expected to play straight away and score goals, like Papiss Cisse did a few years before.
‘I will always love Newcastle, but that was a big problem for me.’
There are some on Tyneside who sympathise and wish he was still in their colours.
Now he stars in the black and white of Fulham, third in the Championship and three points behind Leeds, who they will go level with if they beat Derby tonight. ‘We can smell second position,’ says Mitrovic, in what sounds like a warning.
He agrees the next few months will shape his future, be that Fulham’s quest for the Premier League or Serbia’s Euro 2020 ambitions. They face Norway in their play-off semi-final next month.
Alongside him will be best friend and Palace midfielder Luka Milivojevic, the penalty king. Mitrovic reveals another secret. It was while playing for Serbia in 2018 that he infamously chipped a Panenka penalty over the crossbar, much to the internet’s amusement.
‘Luka told me, “You have to try that one day”. He promises he will too — I’m still waiting!
‘It looks really bad, I know, but I can tell you, it was a really windy day! So let’s blame that…’
While that was one miscalculation, Mitrovic has barely made a wrong move all season.
Maybe Fulham could swap their tactics board for a chess board.