Serb captain makes third World Cup appearance for three nations

PRETORIA - Serb captain Dejan Stankovic entered the World Cup record books Sunday when he took to the pitch for the Group D match against Ghana.

The 31-year-old Inter Milan midfielder became the first player to compete for three different nations in World Cups.

In the 1998 edition in France, Stankovic was in the Yugoslav squad. In 2006, he was a member of the Serbia-Montenegro team, which was eliminated in the first round in Germany.

This year he is captaining Serbia, which is competing in the World Cup for the first time as an independent nation.

“I’m happy to have made such an achievement,” Stankovic said before Serbia’s opening game in Pretoria. “It is a great responsibility. All I want is to go home with my head held high.”