Exclusive: Newcastle face serious competition to land Serbian wonder kid who dazzled against Inter

Although Red Star were well beaten by Inter in their recent Champions League match-up, the quality shown by the visitors Andrija Maksimovic stood out like a sore thumb.

At just 17 years of age, Maksimovic is already making some of European football’s biggest teams sit up and take notice.

That’s despite the fact that he’s only played in four senior level matches for Red Star, per transfermarkt.

Europe’s biggest clubs casting admiring glances towards Andrija Maksimovic

According to CaughtOffside sources, scouts from Newcastle United, Manchester City, Brighton and Hove Albion and Chelsea were all at the midweek match to cast an eye over the talented teen, and they would surely have been impressed by what they saw.

Indeed, sources have also advanced that the Seagulls are already trying to get ahead of the curve and have reached out to Maksimovic’s club to inquire about his situation.

On the continent, all of Juventus, Napoli, Atletico Madrid, Sevilla, and Borussia Dortmund are casting admiring glances Maksimovic’s way, but none have yet been prepared to make their formal interest known.

With a market value of just €1m (transfermarkt), whomever decides to take a chance on him will believe the deal to be a no brainer.

For the player himself, he, along with his representatives, will need to evaluate what they believe to be the next best step in his career.

Whilst the bright lights and big name clubs will be of obvious delight to the youngster, as has been seen time and again in the past – perhaps most recently with Arda Guler at Real Madrid – things don’t always work out as planned.

At Red Star he will be given regular first-team football and be allowed to develop away from the spotlight.

Maksimovic could decide to move to a bigger club and find himself way down the pecking order, which does him no favours whatsoever in terms of his career.