Linchpin of Serbia & Montenegro's rear guard

Manchester United manager Alex Ferguson is one of the shrewdest judges of a player there has ever been.

He has made the occasional mistake but in almost 20 years at Old Trafford his astute buys far outweigh the odd bad one.

He certainly seems to have got it right again with Nemanja Vidic, an old-fashioned, tough-tackling, physical defender.

Vidic quickly established himself as a frequent starter for Manchester United after joining the Premier League side from Spartak Moscow during the January transfer window for a reported fee of about seven million pounds, despite intense competition from Rio Ferdinand, Mikael Silvestre, Wes Brown and John O'Shea.

Within weeks of arriving, Vidic lifted the League Cup with United in March after adding steel to the back four with his outstanding man-marking, tackling and aerial power.

These key attributes helped Serbia & Montenegro to qualify for the World Cup finals with a world record of conceding only one goal in 10 qualifying matches.

Many experts saw Vidic as the most instrumental player in that success as he marshalled a rock-solid defence nicknamed by some "the fabulous four".

While the other three in that department were rotated throughout the campaign due to injuries and suspensions, Vidic remained the linchpin of Serbia & Montenegro's rear guard.

The 24-year old central defender has scored one goal in 19 appearances for his country, four in 39 matches for Spartak Moscow and 12 in 67 games for his first club Red Star Belgrade, having won a domestic league and cup double with them in 2004 before moving on to the Russian first division.  

Vidic is dangerous when coming forward for set pieces just as he is ruthlessly efficient in clearing danger from his own penalty box.

He is not the most skilled defender on the ball and can sometimes be left for pace but compensates for this with exceptional positional play and good timing.

He is often valuable in helping out the midfield and forwards with crisp and simple passing as he reads the game well and has good vision.

Vidic is one of the few irreplaceable players in Serbia & Montenegro's staring line-up and the bulk of the team's hopes of doing well in Germany rest on his ability to command the defence as successfully as he has done in the qualifying campaign.