I was young in this moment. Now, from my position as a man of 10 years older, I realise it was not the best choice I made in my life. And that I probably didn’t think in the best way. But, at the time, I believed this was the best step for myself.

I always do what feels right. This is my personality.

The next season we won the double again. This time there was no award, but I didn’t care. I wasn’t there to fight for personal awards. I was fighting for my club.

My feeling when I left Partizan in 2009 was that I had made enough important steps there. I didn’t see it was possible to make any more, so it made no sense for me to stay. I needed to find another challenge, so that I could build my experience in this profession in a different place.

I wanted to test myself.

It’s what I had always done as a player, and I wanted to do the same as a coach. I still do.

“I believed England was the best country in the world for working in this profession”

I managed clubs in Thailand and Bulgaria before I arrived in Spain in 2014. I signed the contract with Hercules on May 5, with five games of the season remaining and the team sitting at the bottom of the league table.

“You have a 10 to 15 per cent chance to be successful,” they told me.

It was a great experience for me but, at the end, I didn’t save them. Even so, they offered me the opportunity to continue working there. But it didn’t feel right for me.

A few months later, I got my first job as a manager in England, with Watford. It felt like the opportunity I had been waiting for. Football in England was more competitive than anywhere I had worked before. I believed it was the best country in the world for working in this profession.

I had first-hand experience of the English game, too. The first time I came here was as a player, 18 years ago. At the time, I had been playing in Spain for seven years – at Real Oviedo, Tenerife and Deportivo la Coruna – and I was happy there. But the opportunity to play for Chelsea and get a taste of the English game I had seen and heard so much about, was too big to resist.