There is no greater individual honor for an FC Groningen player than winning the “Essent Speler van het Jaar” (Player of the Year) award, voted for entirely by the fans. In the May 2014 matchday programme for the final regular-season game against Heracles Almelo, the “Hoofdrolspeler” feature serves as an official coronation. The headline proudly announces: “Het is fijn om Filip Kostić te zijn” (It is nice to be Filip Kostić).
The editorial introduction reveals that Kostić had accumulated such a massive lead in the SMS voting throughout the season that he was mathematically impossible to catch, securing the award before the final match even kicked off. But the 21-year-old Serbian winger uses the interview to reflect on how difficult his journey to the top actually was. “I had a difficult year and struggled to adapt,” he says of his first season, where he was relegated to playing for the reserves. He credits manager Erwin van de Looi and assistant trainer Dick Lukkien for their tough love. “They wanted to see in training that I could handle it, and that’s how I became a basic player from the first match of this season.”
When asked to name his “Top 3” moments of the season, Kostić provides a perfect roadmap of his breakthrough. His number one moment was his winning goal in the Away match vs PSV. His second choice is a beautiful testament to the Euroborg crowd: during the Home match vs Ajax, he hit the post in the final minute, missing a chance to win the game. “Instead of negative reactions for missing a chance, the crowd stood right behind me and chanted my name. That made me enormously stronger.” His third favorite moment was the Home match vs AZ Alkmaar, simply because his father was visiting Groningen and got to watch him play live. He also shares a touching detail about his mother back in Serbia, who keeps a scrapbook of all his newspaper clippings “so she can later show her own children that their father was a professional footballer.”
A Look into the Future
This interview effectively served as Filip Kostić‘s farewell lap at the Euroborg. His spectacular performances during the 2013/2014 season—combining blistering pace, relentless work rate, and lethal crosses—made it impossible for the club to keep him. That summer, he was sold to VfB Stuttgart in the Bundesliga for a massive transfer fee. His career skyrocketed from there, eventually leading him to Eintracht Frankfurt, where he became a club legend and won the UEFA Europa League, before securing a blockbuster move to Juventus. But no matter how many global trophies he lifted, the scrapbook his mother started during this magical season in Groningen remains the definitive record of how a struggling reserve player transformed into a European superstar.