Football in Serbia and Montenegro:
Red Star Back to Winning Ways

Ozren Podnar

USA | Japan

The only European champion ever to have come from a Slavic nation, Red Star Belgrade collected their 23rd League title on May 9th by beating Vojvodina of Novi Sad 3-0.

Last season the boys in red and white stripes finished second - 19 points adrift of Lothar Matthaus's Partizan, but this season they secured the title in the penultimate week.

On the eve of the 29 April Slavoljub Muslin's side had a five point advantage over their Belgrade neighbours, but in the end it turned out that even in a case of a defeat the title would still have ended up at Marakana stadium as Partizan were beaten by Buducnost in Banatski Dvor, by a goal from their ex-player Srdjan Baljak.

The defeat ended not only Partizan's title hopes but also their 17-match unbeaten run. Apart from Partizan, Serbia & Montenegro will be represented in the UEFA Cup by Zeleznik of Belgrade, whereas Red Star have qualified for the second preliminary round of the Champions' League.

The Belgrade game was marred by serious incidents in and around Marakana. A Red Star fan Dobrica Dimitrijevic was stabbed during the first half of the game, and his condition was described as critical, but after successful surgery he survived.

A total of 95 arrests were made, while fourteen fans sustained injuries, mostly to their hands as a result of attempts to make their way into the stadium by climbing the iron fence.

This is the fifth League championship for Red Star since the disintegration of the Yugoslav multiethnic federation in 1991, and the foundation of the new Serb-Montenegrin state in the spring of 1992. Red Star's archrivals Partizan have gone two better since the split, having won seven titles, but the gap has now gotten narrower.

The main force behind the new champions has been the coach Slavoljub Muslin, Red Star's former centre-half, who already led the "Gypsies" (as they are humorously called by Partizan fans) to two League-and-Cup doubles in 2000 and 2001.

Muslin then left for Bulgaria to make Levski Sofia national champions and Cup winners, but last year returned to replace the unsatisfactory Zoran Filipovic - another red and white idol of the past.

The coach proved once again his magic touch: "At the start of the season I said we had the best players, and they have now proven me right. This is my dearest trophy to date specially because we were very much underrated earlier this season," said Muslin, whose side has another golden opportunity to collect more silverware this Wednesday, when they meet Buducnost - the team that defeated Partizan - in the Cup final.

Red Star's skipper Nemanja Vidic has won his first championship medal, but he says he wants to round up the season with a Cup win. "It's been like unloading a heavy burden from my back. It has been said that if you play for Red Star and do not win a title, it's as if you hadn't played at all. But, now we want the double. We will be very cautious against Buducnost and will do everything to double the celebrations," says the fiery defender who marked Pippo Inzaghi out of the game in the Italy vs. Serbia & Montenegro qualifier last year.

Winning the title has not been easy, but it will be far more difficult to keep the squad competitive. Long gone are the days when the communist-ruled Yugoslavia controlled the exportation of the players by banning the emigration of all footballers under the age of 25.

Such a policy allowed Red Star to build that fabulous side in the late eighties which included Robert Prosinecki, Dragan Stojkovic, Dejan Savicevic, Darko Pancev, Vladimir Jugovic and later Sinisa Mihajlovic and Miodrag Belodedici, who fled native Rumania before the Ceausescus were ousted.

Red Star won the European Champions' Cup and the Intercontinental Cup in 1991, but after the bloody disintegration of Yugoslavia virtually the whole side was transferred abroad.

"We'll do our best to qualify for the forthcoming Champions' League, but first we have to keep the squad intact and maybe even acquire a reinforcement or two," says Muslin, but the word is already out that Atletico Madrid have an eye on full-back Marjan Markovic and the captain Vidic, Inter Milan and Manchester United want Vidic as well, while Hamburger, Ajax and Besiktas are after the centre-forward Nikola Zigic.

Red Star may never win another European crown again, but they sure want at least to emulate their archrivals who played in the Champions' League group phase this season, after knocking out hot favourites Newcastle in the third preliminary round - and preferably not finish bottom of the group, as Partizan subsequently did against Real Madrid, Porto and Olympique Marseille.

Ozren Podnar