Jović asks Serbia to show no mercy

For Serbia, the equation is simple. The UEFA European Under-19 Championship holders must beat Bulgaria to have any hope of progressing to the semi-finals – and Luka Jović is confident they will do just that.

"Now we have to beat Bulgaria," the striker told UEFA.com. "Only victory will take us into the semi-finals and to a place in the [2015 FIFA U-20] World Cup. Only victory gives us the chance to defend the title. Bulgaria are a good team. Like us, they have had lots of chances they haven't taken and, just like us, they conceded very quickly in the first game. We will play to win and I hope we will make up for all the missed chances against Ukraine and Germany."

Serbia find themselves in this position having drawn their first two matches, 1-1 against Ukraine and 2-2 with Germany, when they were pegged back by an added-time equaliser. "That was an extremely tough match," Jović said of the latter encounter. "There is hardly any bigger motivation, than to play against Germany, especially now that they've won the World Cup in Brazil.

"We ran a lot. They had a lot of good passes, and managed to switch the play quickly. We gave it our all, and in my opinion Germany didn't deserve the point they got in injury time."

Jović puts Serbia 2-1 up against Germany©Sportsfile

Aged just 16, the FK Crvena zvezda forward is the youngest player in the finals yet his focus is unerring and he is clear what needs to change against Bulgaria. "[Against Germany] we had our chances and we could have been further than 2-1 in front, but we failed to score. The punishment for that came in injury time, even though I think we deserved the three points.

"We scored twice in the first half against Germany, which is no small achievement. But we had many more opportunities in the second half, and we should have scored more goals. We were punished for not doing so." Jović and Serbia cannot afford to be so profligate again.