Stefan Askovski is on the verge of signing a professional contract with Partizan after playing for Teleoptik, considered the reserve team of the Serbian giants.
As Serbian newspapers are reporting, Stefan Askovski will be one of three Teleoptik players that are expected to sign professional contracts with Partizan over the next couple of days. Besides Askovski, Partizan is also expected to sign contracts with youngsters Miloš Ostojić and Miloš Jojić.
Askovski briefly played for the youth clubs of Metalurg before he then moved to Serbia to join the youth system of Partizan. Askovski is usually deployed at left-back but also has the ability to play any position on the left side. The 19-year-old Askovski formerly played for the Macedonian U19 national team but is no longer eligible for that squad. For this qualifying cycle, players on the U19 squad have to be born in 1993 or later so Askovski, being born in 1992, is no longer eligible. However, Stefan is an option for the Macedonian U21 national team but manager Boban Babunski has not called him up as Dzelil Abdula and Kire Ristevski have been the preferred options at left-back.
Stefan Askovski played in the maximum 17 league games for Teleoptik this season in the Serbian second division. Teleoptik is like the reserve team of Partizan where the latter sends many of its young players on loan in order to gain experience. Teleoptik is currently tied for third place on the table with 28 points but has the best goal difference in the league of +14 after 17 rounds. The first half of the season ended and now Partizan has decided to sign professional contracts with three of their young players from Teleoptik, one of them being Stefan Askovski. In the past, Askovski has played in friendlies for the first team of Partizan but now he will join the squad on a permanent basis with the signing of a professional contract. His arrival could actually mean the end of Aleksandar Lazevski with Partizan since they both play the same position and Lazevski has been linked as a transfer target of Italian side Roma during the winter transfer window.