Ante Palaversa didn’t quite make the grade atManchester City but his goal is to try and win a move back to Pep Guardiola’s English champions.
City paid around £7million to land the talented Croatian from Hajduk Split in 2019 but he spent most of his time there out on loan, at the likes of Oostende, Getafe and Kortrijk, before he moved on to Troyes two years ago. Jimmy Thelin decided to take a chance on the playmaker and signed him on a deal until the end of the season with an option of another two years beyond that.
Now the 24-year-old is looking to get his career up and running at Aberdeen, in what he hopes will be a step back towards the big time. Palaversa admitted: “I was a teenager and of course it was exciting that a big club was coming for me. When I signed for Manchester City I knew I wanted to go to that place and to do well.
“It didn’t work out but in a few years I still want to play there and I always keep that dream in my head. I hope being at Aberdeen can help as I want to play good, train well and help the team achieve goals this year.
“In the five years since I signed with them I’ve taken a lot of experience from playing in Belgium, Spain and France. They were of course difficult times but if you keep pushing yourself down then you are not going to go anywhere.
“I just love to play football and push myself on and that’s what I’ll do here. I think that what I’ve learned means that I’m in a good space at the moment and there’s no point looking back.”
Palaversa also knows impressing at Aberdeen could help him achieve his other big goal of playing in the red and white of Croatia. He has played at every level up to under-21s and wants to take that next step internationally.
He admitted: “I think if the team continues the way they have then it can help me get into the Croatia team. We are playing really well as a team and that can only help the individuals to go up.
“I played with Josip Juranović when I was at Hajduk Split and I followed him when he was at Celtic. So I knew a bit about the standard of Scottish football and the atmosphere in the stadiums is really good.”
The Red Army got their first look at Palaversa as he made an impressive first start for the club in last weekend’s win over Motherwell. The Croat will be hoping he has done enough to start in the Premier Sports Cup against Spartans on Saturday, although captain Graeme Shinnie is now back and fit after illness.
Palaversa admitted: “I appreciate a club like Aberdeen giving me a year to prove myself because I think I can do really good stuff here. The last two seasons in particular weren’t good as I was injured for about half the time at Troyes.
“But when I was fit I felt that I didn’t get the amount of playing time to prove myself I deserved in France. Right now I am just focused on getting on with the training and playing as much as possible.”
Aberdeen are big favourites against League Two Spartans and the 24-year-old is well aware that there is a big prize at stake, in terms of a Premier Sports Cup semi-final berth at Hampden. “The team are doing well at the moment but the manager makes sure we stay focussed on what we are going to achieve,” the Reds new boy added.
“We are not the perfect team but the chance to get to a cup semi-final is really good. It’s tough whoever you play against and we have to be on our level to get there.
“If we show what we have already this season we will do well but we respect Spartans. We don’t think about them being in a lower league, we are keeping the team spirit to make sure we win.”
Palaversa was promoting Premier Sport’s live and exclusive coverage of Aberdeen v The Spartans on Saturday evening. Premier Sports is available to stream from premiersports.com or via your TV provider on Sky, Virgin TV and Amazon Prime as an add-on subscription.