Vidic anxious for success after 2006 failure

BELGRADE (Reuters) - Serbia defender Nemanja Vidic is desperate to make an impact in what could be his last World Cup after the 2006 fiasco in which his country lost all three group matches.

Vidic was part of Serbia and Montenegro's 2006 World Cup squad but missed the entire tournament through suspension and a knee injury.

"Hence I see this as my first World Cup and it could also be my last because I will be 29 in October," the Manchester United center back told the Serbian Football Association website (www.fss.rs).

"So I am really keen to achieve some kind of success with the national team and reaching the last 16 in South Africa would be a good result.

Serbia's build-up to the finals suffered a hiccup following a 1-0 warm-up defeat by New Zealand on Saturday but Vidic said the team had taken plenty of positives from the upset.

"Sometimes you can learn more from a defeat in a friendly against unheralded opposition than you would from a routine win but we do have to address individual mistakes, I made a few myself against New Zealand," he said.

"We are looking forward to our opening Group D match against Ghana in Pretoria on June 13, we know they will be missing their best player Michael Essien but they have an outstanding crop of young players who can step in."

The Serbians also play Germany in Port Elizabeth on June 18 and Australia in Nelspruit on June 23.

(Reporting by Zoran Milosavljevic; editing by Pritha Sarkar)