The Loan
Fort Wayne Football Club has added Aleksandar Vukovic, a 25-year-old Serbian center back, on loan from Phoenix Rising FC of the USL Championship. It is the third loan the front office has completed in two weeks, after Logan Neidlinger arrived from Indy Eleven and Mamadi Jiana from Houston Dynamo 2 of MLS NEXT Pro, all done before the League One roster freeze passed on September 7. The loan runs through the end of the League One season.
Born in Nova Pazova, Serbia, Vukovic moved to the United States at 20 and worked his way up: junior college at LSU Eunice, then a jump to Division I with UC Riverside, where he made the All-Big West First Team in 2022, then Marshall, where he helped the program reach the 2024 NCAA Division I final. Real Salt Lake took him 89th overall in the 2025 MLS SuperDraft, and he chose to return to school, starting 14 matches in a graduate season at Duke before signing a multi-year contract with Phoenix Rising in January. This season he appeared 13 times across all competitions for Phoenix, with one assist in league play and an extra-time goal against Orange County SC that sent Phoenix into the Round of 32 of the US Open Cup.
With the final move before the roster freeze, Fort Wayne added a central defender capable of both defending and attacking on set pieces, providing competition to a strong first-year defensive unit.
The Defender’s Verdict
By the Numbers
Small sample warning first: we’re working with about 400 league minutes, most of them in relief, so everything here is an early read on a player Phoenix never fully used. What the minutes do show is a clear shape. The strongest signal is his passing. The stat is xPass, American Soccer Analysis’s pass-difficulty model, and Vukovic sits at +3.9, meaning nearly four more completions per hundred passes than an average Championship center back attempting the same balls. The passes themselves are the fun part. He plays long, vertical balls that break lines, closer to a deep playmaker than a center back playing keep-away. That skill should translate nicely for how Fort Wayne FC wants to start their attacks.
In the air he was close to untouchable. He won more than four of every five aerial duels, better than nine of every ten Championship center backs, got dribbled past exactly once all season, and cleared his lines constantly. The bigger question is rhythm: Vukovic has played four competitive minutes since June 11, two cameos of two minutes each, then nothing through July, August, and September, and his last full hour of soccer came three months ago at Louisville. Phoenix simply stopped using him, which is why this loan exists and why a player with this resume was available. It also means he arrives needing match fitness at the exact moment the season stops handing out development minutes.
Projected Role on Fort Wayne FC
My read: Vukovic should start next to Tiago Dias, and soon. He is the best ball-playing center back on this roster, and the aerial numbers will hold up a division down. That makes James Musa the first center back off the bench and limits Reid Sproat’s minutes, which is the uncomfortable part of the projection, because Sproat has been one of our best ball-winners this season. Mike Avery suddenly has a real decision at a position that was drama free all summer.
It feels like the beginning of the end for Juan Solís in Fort Wayne. He has not played since July 15 at Knoxville, eight straight matchdays and counting. A deadline-day center back on loan closes whatever remained of his 2026.
The variable in this loan is rust for Vukovic. Avery eased Logan Neidlinger in with twenty minutes off the bench after about one month of matchday inactivity, but Vukovic has nearly three months of inactivity that he needs to shed before finding his best form. We’re in a contested race for the final playoff spot in USL League One, so getting him up to match speed will be key. Either way, set pieces are where Vukovic can pay rent immediately, at both ends, however Avery stages his minutes.
Always FWD