With the magnificent brace score yesterday against his former side Napoli, Goran Pandev surpassed Mirko Vučinić and is now the best goalscorer in Seria A from all players coming from countries from the former Yugoslavia.

photo by Corriere dello Sport: Pandev celebrates one of the goals

Pandev stunned Napoli yesterday as his Genoa celebrated a 2:1 win. Coach Davide Ballardini gave Pandev his first start since Round 14 match against Spezia. In the 11th minute Croat Milan Badelj perfectly served him in the box and Pandev broke the dead lock. Soon after, in the 26th minute the Macedonian was once again well assisted, this time by Slovene Miha Zajc for a 2:0 lead. Interestingly, both his assistant are also ex Yugoslav.

With these goals Pandev now has 97 Serie A goals and is only three away from reaching the Club 100. But, now he is the best goalscorer in the Calcio from all players coming from former Yugoslavia as he surpassed the 96 goals scored by Montenegrin attacker Mirko Vučinić.

Top Serie A scorer from ex Yugoslavia:

97 Goran Pandev
96 Mirko Vučinić
91 Josip Iličić
85 Edin Džeko

Pandev is currently 98th all-time Serie goalscorer, sharing that place with his former Napoli teammate Dries Mertens and retired Welsh striker John Charles. He is before the likes of Marco Borriello, Valentino Mazzola, Alessandro Matri, Marco van Basten, Gianfranco Zola, Fabio Quagliarella, Kaká etc.

He is pretty close to becoming the best Balkan scorer in Serie A as before him is only Romanian Adrian Mutu with 103 goals. He needs six more goals to equal him and 7 to surpass him.

“I am happy, but above all I am happy for the team who played a great match and we deserved the 3 points because to win against a great team isn’t easy, however, we demonstrated our values, we gave out best and if you ask me we deserved the win”, said Pandev after the match.

“The merits for the goals are also to my teammates who gave me two beautiful assists. I believe in reaching 100 goals, there are still many games to be played, but for me goals have never been that important, important is the team, the team that wins, that is more important than goals”