Neven Subotić/import

Neven Subotić[needs Serbian IPA] (German pronunciation: [ˈnɛvɛn ˈsuːbotɪt͡ʃ] ( listen), Serbian Cyrillic: Heвeн Cубoтић; born 10 December 1988) is a Serbian footballer who plays as a centre-back for the German Bundesliga club Borussia Dortmund and the Serbia national football team. He made his first-team debut in the 2006–07 season for 1. FSV Mainz 05. In 2008, he signed with Borussia Dortmund.

Early life

Born in Banja Luka, Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, to Bosnian Serb[1] parents, father Željko from the village of Kulaši and mother Svjetlana from Brestovo, Subotić spent his early childhood in the town of Prnjavor. In 1990, when Subotić was two years old, his father went to Germany in search of work. In 1994, with the Bosnian War already raging, the rest of the family including five-year-old Subotić, his sister and their mother joined their father in Germany, settling in the town of Schömberg. Subotić took up football at the age of seven with the local outfit TSV Schwarzenberg.[2] In the late 1990s, the Subotić family's residence authorization in Germany expired and in order to avoid being deported back to Bosnia,[3] they opted to move to the United States in 1999. They settled in Salt Lake City, Utah, where Subotić's father had a cousin.[2] Subotić played football with Sparta Gold and Impact Black youth clubs. Within two years, the family was on the move again, this time to Bradenton, Florida, so that Subotić's sister Natalija could pursue a tennis career at the Nick Bollettieri Tennis Academy.[2] The city also happens to be the base for the United States under-17 national team. Subotić trained on his own in G.T. Bray Park, where he got spotted by Keith Fulk, one of the American team's assistant coaches who then informed the team's head coach, John Ellinger, about Subotić. After arranging a tryout, they offered Subotić a spot in the residency camp. At the time, he was not attached to any club sides, but eventually started playing with the University of South Florida team. While playing with the under-17 team in the Netherlands, Subotić was approached by player agent Steve Kelly, who inquired about his career plans and offered a possibility of playing in Europe. After impressing at the tryout for 1. FSV Mainz 05, young Subotić was on his way there, initially playing for the club's youth and fourth-division teams (1. FSV Mainz 05 II).[2] Subotić holds a German passport; an American passport; a Bosnia and Herzegovina passport; and a Serbian passport.

Club career

1. FSV Mainz 05

Subotić made his professional debut for 1. FSV Mainz 05 in the last match of the 2006–07 season against Bayern Munich, as his team was relegated from the Bundesliga. In the 2. Bundesliga the following season, he seized a starting role in what was the leagues best defense, conceding only 37 goals. The team finished in fourth place, missing the promotion back to Bundesliga by only two points. In the 2008 summer off-season, Mainz head coach Jürgen Klopp got a job coaching Borussia Dortmund and was instrumental in bringing Subotić along with him.

Borussia Dortmund

On 4 June 2008, it was announced that Subotić had signed with Borussia Dortmund on a five-year contract. He debuted for his new club in the unofficial DFL-Supercup match against Bayern Munich, which Dortmund won 2–1. Subotić's defensive displays quickly turned a lot of heads. In December 2008, he was named in the ideal XI team of the first part of the 2008–09 Bundesliga season, alongside such defensive stars as Lúcio and Philip Lahm.[5] In addition to confident and effective defensive displays far beyond his years, Subotić was also a factor on the offensive end, scoring six league goals throughout the season. In June 2009, he signed a new contract which lasts until summer 2014.[6] In the 2009–10 Bundesliga season, Subotić was one of only four players in the entire league to play every minute of every league match. On 15 December 2010, Subotić scored his first goal ever in the European competition, scoring a header off a corner at Sevilla FC in the Europa League to tie the score at 2–2. The match was a decider on which of the two teams would go on from the group stage, as Borussia needed to win away while Sevilla was fine even with a draw. It ended 2–2, however, and Borussia were eliminated. On 27 July 2013, Subotić won the 2013 DFL-Supercup with Dortmund 4–2 against rivals Bayern Munich.[7]

International career

Youth level Subotić was part of the squad selected and coached by John Hackworth for the U.S. entry in the 2005 FIFA U-17 World Championship during September 2005 in Peru. Sixteen years of age at the time, he entered all three group matches as a substitute during the final five minutes. In the quarter-final versus the Netherlands, where the U.S. team lost 0–2 and were eliminated, he played from the start but received a red card in the 73rd minute. He has also made two appearances for the USA U-20 team. What would prove to be his last one took place in November 2006 in a friendly after which head coach Thomas Rongen criticized Subotić, who had signed for Mainz several months earlier, for "not accelerating over there to the point where we feel he belongs on the [U.S.] team."[8] Next summer, Rongen controversially did not select him to play in the 2007 U-20 World Cup in Canada, picking defenders such as Nathan Sturgis, Anthony Wallace, Julian Valentin, Ofori Sarkodie, Tim Ward, and Amaechi Igwe ahead of Subotić, a decision that has resulted in Rongen receiving a fair amount of criticism. While Rongen insisted that a groin injury was to blame,[9] there has been considerable speculation since then that Subotić was so stung by Rongen's criticism that he decided to reconsider his international future: “ 	Well, Rongen certainly said some discouraging and false things about me. Never in my life have I heard that a high level coach publicly criticizes a player. Professional coaches do that one-on-one with the player. I find this disappointing, because a few months later after Rongen said I was not good enough for the U-20s, I played a very good season and started getting calls from various countries [U.S. included] for the full men's team. I still don't know what he saw in the other players, and what he didn't see in me