Serbian Mažić to referee in Lisbon
Milorad Mažić will take charge of the first-leg encounter between SL Benfica and PAOK in Estádio da Luz for the UEFA Champions League play-offs.
Born on 23 March 1973 in Vrbas, Serbia, Milorad Mažić has been a professional referee since 2006. In 2008, he took charge of his first derby between Belgrade archrivals Red Star and FK Partizan –since then he has been appointed to 12 more of them, holding the relevant record between Serbian referees.
He earned his FIFA badge in 2009 and started officiating mainly encounters between youth national sides. On 9 July of the same year, he made his UEFA Europa League debut, refereeing the 1st-qualifying-round match between Llanelli FC and Motherwell FC (0-3).
He came up through the ranks in impressive pace and in 2010 he took charge of his first UEFA Champions League qualifier, Inter Baku prevailing 1-0 away over Lech Poznań in Poland.
In 2013, he was promoted to the UEFA Elite Development Category and since then has been selected for all major football events. He officiated in the 2014 and 2018 FIFA World Cup finals in Brazil and Russia respectively, in the UEFA Euro 2016 in France and in last season’ FIFA Confederations Cup, where he was assigned the final match, between Chile and Germany, the Nationalmannschaft prevailing 1-0 and claiming the trophy. The stellar moment in Mažić’s career so far was refereeing the UEFA Champions League final of 2018, between Real Madrid and Liverpool (3-1 for the Spanish side).
This isn’t the first time that Mažić and PAOK cross paths. On 15 September 2011, the Serbian referee was assigned the Toumba encounter against Tottenham Hotspur (0-0), for the opening day of the UEFA Europa League group stage.
Mažić also officiated AEK Athens’s 4-2 loss to FC Zenit St.Petersburg in 2010 and Olympiakos’s 1-0 away victory over FC Rubin Kazan in 2012 and 1-0 win over Juventus in “G. Karaiskakis” in 2014.
The Serbian referee will be accompanied in Estádio da Luz by his countrymen Milovan Ristić and Dalibor Djurdjević, the assistant referees, with Nemanja Petrović acting as fourth officical. Nenad Djokić and Danilo Grujić complete the team as additional assistant referees, while László Vágner from Hungary will be the Referee Observer.
