When Milos Kosanovic lined up the ball 25 yards from AS Pirae’s goal, with his Al Jazira side leading 2-0 just before the break, there was a sense of inevitability for the home fans at Mohammed bin Zayed Stadium. The sequence in which that hushed anticipation around the ground turned into a wild roar at the sight ball nestling into the bottom corner was all too familiar for anyone who followed Al Jazira and their prolific centre-back. After all, this was the Serbia’s eighth goal from a free kick in just over a year and a half in the club’s colours.

Where a Serbian defender with a wand of a left foot found his inspiration should come as no surprise. Growing up in the 1990s and early 2000s, Kosanovic had one of Serbian football and Serie A’s most iconic names to look up to. “I grew up admiring Sinisa Mihajlovic, as a defender and a free-kick taker,” Kosanovic told FIFA after marking his FIFA Club World Cup™ debut with a trademark strike. “He had a very strong left foot, but it was not only about strength for him. It was also about being smart and unpredictable, and I admired that a lot. He was a defender, a goal scorer, a leader and a role model to a lot of young Serbian footballers back then, including me.”

After a journeyman career that saw him leave his mark in Poland, Belgium and Turkey, Kosanovic arrived at Al Jazira in 2019, not only helping to shore up the defence, but also contributing six goals to their 2020/21 title-winning campaign, all of them coming from free-kicks. And while Mihajlovic served as Kosanović’s muse as a youngster, the learning did not stop there. Nowadays he casts his eyes far and wide to continue learning from the very best, even at the age of 31. “There are no secrets behind being a good free-kick taker,” he said. “It is always about dedication, practice, and learning from the best all the time. I always practice scoring from free-kicks, and I watch closely how other players do it, because you will lose your talent if you think you already became the best and decide to stop practicing and learning. Against AS Pirae in the opening game, he picked the bottom right corner, where the goalkeeper was positioned, beating him for power, but Kosanovic says variety is key to his success as a free-kick master. Where he places his next one is anyone’s guess.

Kosanovic’s next task will be to keep the likes of Matheus Pereira, Michael and Odion Ighalo quiet, while also seizing any set-pieces that may arise if he is to help the Abu Dhabi-based side match their best-ever Club World Cup result of reaching the semi-finals in 2017. “It’s about balance – you have to balance shooting the ball high to rise above the human wall but going down on time,” he said. “You need to practice shooting from different angles and distances, and you have to be unpredictable, to shoot on the side of the wall or even under it. “You have to maintain that element of surprise and have keepers and defenders always wondering how you will take the free-kick. Again, practising and learning are the keys to succeed in all this.”