Jan Mlakar was a teen prodigy, signed by Fiorentina in 2017 at the age of 16 for a reported €1m from Domzale - but it hasn’t quite worked out. He returned home a year later with Maribor, before another big club took a punt on him: Brighton paying £2.7m and handing him a three-and-a-half year deal in 2019. Again it was a false dawn: he had two loans back at Maribor, while his only first-team football in England was during loans at QPR and Wigan. He found more success, though, when he made a permanent move to Croatia’s Hajduk Split in 2021, and joined Pisa two years later. His opportunities at international level have mostly come out on the left wing, but he will have to be patient for a chance this summer, either there or up front.
