Sporting Kansas City announced today that they had completed the signing of Neven Markovic, a versatile defender from the Bosnia and Herzegovina city of Čapljina. Neven, who has seen minutes at both center back and left back, had last played for Doxa Drama in the Superleague Greece but failed to make an appearance with the club before coming to Kansas City. In fact, besides his Wikipedia page(which doesn't have a source), there is literally no record of Neven having ever played for Doxa Drama - which is weird. But there are records and highlights from his earlier footballing experiences, which is what this post is about...
Screw trying to bring you guys along slowly through his career - here's 12 minutes of non-stop Neven Markovic action right off the bat. He definitely looks Collin-esk.
Stats
Neven has played for 6 clubs excluding Sporting KC. He has never recorded a professional goal but got an assist in his club's(NK Zagreb) 2-1 loss to NK Karlovac. Neven has recorded 2,421 minutes of professional football, 90 of those against SK Slavia Prag in the first round of a UEFA Cup match. Markovic's longest ever stay at one club was wirth FC Vaslui where he made 12 appearances in Liga 1 and played 866 minutes for the Romanian club.
Markovic has never lost on a debut. His record for first games at a new club is 2-2-0(W-D-L).
Markovic is estimated to be worth around $153,412 in the current market but sold for $270,006 in 2008 when he went to FC Vaslui. I believe that Sporting KC did not receive Markovic on a free transfer, but as I stated earlier, there is no record online of him ever playing for Doxa Drama. My evidence that Neven was not a free agent is from Sporting KC's press release that says " The 25-year-old joins Sporting KC from Doxa Drama FC, who compete in the Superleague Greece."
Markovic has never really been a preferred starter at any club but with Lawrence Olum out with an injury, I expect Neven to make the bench when he is available later on in July.