In July 2010 Manchester City signed Aleks Kolarov from Lazio for a deal around the 16million pound mark. Advertised as the 'Serbian Roberto Carlos' he is very handy at scoring spectacular goals and a very powerful shot as City fans have been witness too over the last fifteen months. All this and yet he may never have ever became a blue having been linked with a move to Carlos' old team, Real Madrid.
His footballing career started in 1999 with the Red Star Belgrade youth system and although he spent five years there he never actually made the first team. From there he moved to another Serbian club based in Belgrade, FK Cukaricki Stankom. At 19 he couldn't help them avoiding relegation and Kolarov soon found himself in the second tier league and in the winter break transferred again, this time to OFK Beograd and back to the top League again.
During his time with these two teams he played 82 times and scored seven times. In 2007 the Italian side, Lazio saw enough of him to sign the now 22 year old for a fee of 925,000 euros, or two carrots and a tin of baked beans in today's Euro. He missed playing under two Manchester City managers as both Sven and Roberto had previously been at the helm of the Rome side.
During his time at Lazio he played over 80 times and gained experience in a top European League and valuable Champions League experience. This made him appealing for Manchester City boss, Roberto Mancini in the summer of 2010.
So far in his City career he has scored some vital goals, scoring the fourth and game sealer in the FA Cup replay with Leicester City. He also scored the second goal in the League against Birmingham and was unlucky not to win it for City as his last second freekick went inches wide. Probably though his most important to date was the equalising goal while playing in Manchester Citys first Champions League game scoring a wonderful equaliser from a free kick.
Earlier on I said he was labelled as the Serbian Roberto Carlos. I think that is inaccurate as Carlos used to rely on the power of his free kicks to beat keepers. Kolarov on the other hand, while he does posess some fearsome power on his shots, can also place freekicks with the accuracy on the same scale as the best in the world.
Happy Birthday Aleks.
Written By: PA Cityboy (www.facebook.com/pacityboy)
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