The angry words were posted on the Facebook wall of 17-year-old Partizan Belgrade midfielder Danilo Pantic, who reportedly signed a pre-agreement with Juventus this year. “People do not know how tough we have it,” he wrote. “What success means to us. How much we want to fight for this country that gave us a family and a bit of land under the sky.”

The talented winger had aired his frustration as Serbia relinquished their European Under-19 championship crown to Germany last month. The outburst was saluted by fellow Partizan alumnus Lazar Markovic, perhaps the most gifted of Zemunelo’s prolific talent factory spanning 10 hectares in a Belgrade suburb.

Serbia Under-19s may have lost their title but not their consistency. They are the only nation to have qualified for every European Under-19 championship in the last four years. As he took the reins of the senior team last week, Dick Advocaat acknowledged the emergence of Serbia’s great generation, insisting he had taken the job for the promising youth rather than the promised money.

The 20-year-old Markovic will make his Premier League debut with Liverpool this month after initially interesting Chelsea, where Nemanja Matic instantly established himself alongside another Serb, Branislav Ivanovic. Also playing in the Premier League this season are the Manchester City defenders Matija Nastasic, 21, and Aleksandar Kolarov. Across town, Manchester United have acquired the 17-year-old goalkeeper Vanja Milinkovic-Savic.

The influx does not stop there: Arsenal have just given a trial to the Javor midfielder Mladen Micanovic, also 17. Chelsea’s José Mourinho is monitoring the 18-year-old talents Srdjan Babic, a Vojvodina centre-back, and Andrija Zivkovic. Another Partizan prospect, Zivkovic broke the record of youngest player to make an appearance for the Serbia national team last season against Japan with the Chelsea manager in attendance.

Southampton’s manager Ronald Koeman made the flamboyant Dusan Tadic his first acquisition upon settling in Hampshire. Meanwhile, Tottenham Hotspur are quietly nurturing their 18-year-old prospect Milos Veljkovic, who made his league debut in April against Sunderland.

These clubs will no doubt compete with their European rivals for the signature of the Red Star Belgrade teenager Luka Jovic, who scored two minutes into his senior debut last season, barely aged 16.

The Premier League is hardly bucking a trend here. With a population of more than seven million, Serbia is the third biggest provider of exported footballers in European leagues with 205 players playing outside the country, behind Brazil (515) and France (269), according to the Swiss-based CIES Football Observatory.

In its 2014 demographic study, CIES also rates Partizan’s youth academy just behind that of Ajax, based on the boyhood club of all footballers across Europe’s 31 leagues. Serbia is the only country with two representatives in the top six as Partizan’s rivals, Red Star, come sixth, just behind Barcelona and Sporting Clube de Portugal.

With leading European sides identifying talented young players earlier and earlier, Igor Jankovic, head of grassroots football development at the Serbian football federation, works ever harder to spot emerging prospects. He is assisted not by a panel of specialists but the entire country. “Serbia is full of grassroots-level scouts,” he grins, suggesting the nationwide sports culture extends beyond the field to scouts and coaches. To him, diversity is the key success factor in shaping the country’s elite sportsmen. “Youth players in Partizan are managed by 10 vastly different coaches,” he says. “Each coach adds a layer to the player’s development and provides a multi-dimensional definition to the concept of talent.”

The Premier League’s Serbian contingent all reflect this underlying diversification. Markovic and Nastasic graduated from Partizan’s academy, Ivanovic and Kolarov from OFK, Tadic and Milinkovic-Savic from Vojvodina. Nemanja Matic was groomed in Jedinstvo Ub, the small town where the country’s greatest player, Dragan Dzajic, was born. “We identify about 30 talents for a generation like the 1995 crop,” says Mitar Mrkela, a former Yugoslavia international now overseeing the national youth teams. “We do not have many so we cherish them.”

Many Serbian prospects see a move to Spain or Italy as a reward after working their way up the system. Others seek another challenge on British shores. Nemanja Vidic, once of Manchester United and widely seen as one of the Premier League’s best central defenders, has left for Internazionale after eight years in England. Lazar Markovic will now begin his own adventure, his light-footed runs barely skimming the Anfield turf. His struggle for a bit of land under the Merseyside sky will be the latest flourishing of what Serbia hope will be their golden generation.

Igor Mladenovic is a French-Serbian sports journalist and works for Serbia’s national broadcaster RTS. Follow him on Twitter @Mladenovic_

Serbia’s stars

Nemanja Matic (Chelsea) The 26-year-old defensive midfielder returned to Chelsea for £21m from Benfica last January, after initially leaving the West London club as a bargaining chip in David Luiz moving to Stamford Bridge in January 2011.

Lazar Markovic (Liverpool) The floppy-haired winger joined Partizan Belgrade in 2006 as a 12-year-old trainee, twice being named in the SuperLiga’s team of the year before joining Benfica in June 2013. The 20-year-old arrives now at Liverpool, with the Anfield club hoping he continues his remarkable record of being a champion in each of his four seasons as a pro.

Dusan Tadic (Southampton) The 25-year-old attacking midfielder became the Saints’ first signing of the post-Pochettino era having already had two-year spells at both Groningen and Twente in the Netherlands. Sixteen goals in 33 Eredivisie games for the latter last campaign convinced Ronald Koeman to part with £8m for the Serbian’s services. Benjamin Grounds