Dejan Stanković (Serbian Cyrillic: Дејан Станковић, Serbian pronunciation: , born 11 September 1978) is a Serbian professional football manager and former player. Most recently he was the manager of Serbian SuperLiga club Red Star Belgrade.
He captained the Serbia national team from 2007 until 2011, when he announced his retirement from international football. Stanković began his career at Red Star Belgrade, before joining Lazio in 1998. He spent more than five years with the latter club before joining Inter Milan, where he remained until his retirement in 2013.
Stanković is renowned for being the only man to represent three nations at FIFA World Cups – Yugoslavia, Serbia and Montenegro, and Serbia.
Stanković made his international debut for the FR Yugoslavia team against South Korea on 22 April 1998, scoring two goals in a 6–1 victory. He represented the FR Yugoslavia national team at the 1998 World Cup and Euro 2000, soon establishing himself as an important player.
The Yugoslav team was renamed Serbia and Montenegro by the time 2006 World Cup qualifying started. Stanković played all games but last one, scoring two goals. At the 2006 FIFA World Cup, he was given the number 10 shirt and Savo Milošević captained the new Serbia and Montenegro team in their first World Cup, but they failed to progress to the knock-out rounds after losing all their group matches to the Ivory Coast, Argentina and the Netherlands. After Milošević retired, the midfielder took over as captain of the re-formed Serbia national team, following the breakup of Serbia and Montenegro.
He was silver medalist at the 2009 Cyprus International Football Tournament. In the 2010 World Cup qualifying, Stanković started in and captained all but two of Serbia's matches. They qualified for their first World Cup as an independent nation. He was instrumental in their shock 1–0 win over favorites Germany, but they were not able to progress to the next round due to narrow losses against Ghana and Australia.
After captaining the team in a 1–0 loss in the final game of the UEFA Euro 2012 qualifying phase against Slovenia, Stanković announced his retirement from international football after 13 years since his debut against South Korea in 1998. He played a testimonial match two years later, becoming the most capped player in the history of Serbia (103), playing one more match than Savo Milošević. The match was played against Japan, in which he played until the tenth minute, making room for Ivan Radovanović. He received a standing ovation as he said his final goodbye to football. Serbia went on to win the match 2–0.
Stanković was born in Belgrade, present day Serbia, to Bora and Dragica and has a brother Siniša. He is married to Ana Ačimovič, whom he met at the age of 19, and who is a sister of former professional footballer Milenko Ačimovič, Stanković's former teammate at Red Star. The pair has three sons; Stefan (b. 2000), Filip (b. 2002) and Aleksandar (b. 2005), and the family resides in Milan. All of his three sons were members of Inter Milan football academy.
Stanković and his family spend much of their free time in the Slovenian capital Ljubljana, the birthplace of his wife and residence of his brother-in-law Milenko. As of February 2014, Stanković played amateur football for veteran's club KMN Olimpija Ljubljana, where he played alongside his brother in law and a number of former professional footballers (e.g. Sebastjan Cimirotič, Ermin Rakovič, and Igor Lazič).
Serie A Hat-Trick 2010-11-28 |
1994-1998 |
1998-2004 |
2004-2013 |
2019-2022 Manager |
| Inter | Appearances | Italian Serie A | 2010-2011 | 26 |
| Inter | Assists | Italian Serie A | 2010-2011 | 5 |
| Inter | Goals | Italian Serie A | 2010-2011 | 5 |
| Lazio | Appearances | Italian Serie A | 2000-2001 | 21 |