However, an injury forced him to retire from the game at a young age. He returned to FK Rad and began coaching at the youth academy. He moved up to the first team from October 2008 at the age of 30. He also worked with the Serbian U18 and national team the following year. Nikolic returned back to manage FK Rad for 47 games before becoming head coach of Vojvodina.

The coach moved again in December when he became manager of Partizan. He guided them to the Europa League group stage in 2014. There was a short period in charge of Slovenian team Olimpija Ljubljana before returning back to Partizan in August 2016 after they made a poor start to the season. His second period in charge of them saw him manage them in 40 games, which produced an average of 2,65 points.

There was no surprise when he coached the team from the Serbian capital to the league and cup double. “First of all I would like to thank everyone, especially the Videoton supporters for the chance to work here. I have been following Hungarian league for a long time now, as it was important for me as part of my work to be up to date with Hungarian football. I have seen that the league has been developing each year.

The infrastructure is getting better all the time and the media and supporters have been following the football, but results in Europe have been missing at club level. I have been working as a professional coach for 17 years now, and have worked for the last 4 years at such clubs where the targets were big and we were fighting for trophies. Vidi is such a club and I would like to win everything possible as a manager here in Szekesfehervár.” – commented new manager Marko Nikolic.

“I can only repeat myself when I say what a disappointment we experienced last season by finishing second. We need to get over this disappointment, as the pre-season will shortly begin for the new season. The ambition at Videoton has not reduced, but in fact grown.

The targets remain the same, which is why we have come to an agreement with Marko Nikolic, who despite being young, is a successful manager. We hope that under his management, the club can head along the winning road.

Just like before, the club will give him all the help it can to achieve the targets. I need to also point out that it was very easy to come to an agreement with Marko, and I could feel from the first minute that he wanted to become the manager of Videoton” – commented director of football, Zoltán Kovács.

Photo: vidi.hu

Source: vidi.hu