Red Star Belgrade
Full name Fudbalski Klub Crvena Zvezda
Nickname(s) Zvezda (Star)
Crveno-beli (The Red-Whites)
Founded 4 March 1945
Ground Stadion Crvena Zvezda,
Belgrade, Serbia
(Capacity: 55,538)
President Vladan Lukić
Head Coach Aleksandar Kristić
The Biggest Rival FK Partizan
League Serbian Jelen SuperLiga
Official Website http://www.crvenazvezdafk.com/
Current squad
No. Position Player
1 GK Boban Bajković
2 MF Sávio
3 DF Duško Tošić
5 DF Bojan Đorđević
6 DF Nikola Ignjatijević
7 MF Milan Jeremić
8 MF Darko Lazović
9 MF Ognjen Koroman (vice-captain)
11 FW Miloš Trifunović
13 DF Lee Addy
14 DF Nikola Mikić
15 DF Milan Vilotić
16 DF Stevan Reljić
17 MF Vladan Binić
No. Position Player
18 DF Slavoljub Đorđević (captain)
20 MF Cadú
21 FW Aleksandar Jevtić
22 GK Saša Stamenković
23 FW Slavko Perović
24 DF Pavle Ninkov
25 DF Danijel Mihajlović
26 MF Mohammed-Awal Issah
29 MF Marko Vešović
32 MF Vladimir Bogdanović
33 GK Bojan Pavlović
88 MF Dejan Milovanović (on loan from RC Lens)
99 FW Andrija Kaluđerović
Fudbalski Klub Crvena Zvezda (Serbian Cyrillic: Фудбалски клуб Црвена звезда,Serbo pronunciation: [tsrʋɛna zʋɛːzda], known in English as Red Star Belgrade) is a football club from Belgrade, Serbia. The club is a part of the larger sport society SD Crvena Zvezda/SC Red Star.
Crvena zvezda is the only Serbian and ex Yugoslav club to have become European and World Champions having won the 1991 European Cup and 1991 Intercontinental Cup since no other club from ex Yugoslavia won those two titles. They are also the only Serbian club ever to win an international title.
According to recent polls, Red Star is the most popular football club in Serbia, with nearly 50% of the population supporting the club.[1][2] Their main rivals are fellow Belgrade side, FK Partizan. British Daily Mail in September 2009 has ranked the Red Star – Partizan derby on the 4th position among 10 greatest football rivalries in the world.
According to the International Federation of Football History & Statistics' list of Top 200 European clubs of the 20th century, Red Star is the highest ranked Serbian club, sharing the 27th position on the list with Feyenoord.
History
Start
In February 1945, during World War II, a group of young people, members of the Serbian United Antifascist Youth League, decided to form a Youth Physical Culture Society, that was to become Red Star on March 4[5]. The name Red Star was assigned to the club after a long discussion, and the first vice presidents of the Sport Society, Zoran Žujović and Slobodan Ćosić, were the ones to assign it. On that day Red Star played the first football match against the First Battalion of the Second Brigade of KNOJ and won 3:0 (2:0).
Five days later, a football section was officially formed, led by Kosta Tomašević, and the first manager was Predrag Đajić. The two of them defended the honor of Red Star in the playing field – Tomašević was the first striker and scorer in the history of the club, and Đajić was a midfielder. Red Star was given a stadium of a prewar FC Yugoslavia (that was active during the war under the name of League of Communists of Yugoslavia in 1913, and that was disbanded specifically due to these activities at the time of occupation), at that time known as Avala.
In a post-war 1946 season, Red Star won the Serbian Championship and thus qualified for the Yugoslav Championship. In the first four seasons the club did not succeed in winning any championships, however, in the period of 1948 to 1950 there was a series of hat-trick triumphs in Cups, finals against Partizan, Naša Krila of Zemun and Dinamo.
The first championship was won in a spectacular way. Three rounds before the end Dinamo from Zagreb was five points in the lead in the league and winning a match brought two points. However, the team from Zagreb was defeated by the team from Sarajevo, and Red Star won the rivals’ duel for the championship and entered the last round with a minus of one point. The match between BSK and Dinamo ended 2:2, and the decision was reached a day later, on November 4, in the match with Partizan. The eternal rival had won the derby very convincingly earlier that season (6:1), but Red Star this time scored the necessary 2:0 and thanks to better goal-average (only 0,0018 more) became the national champion for the first time.
The late fifties – the first era of dominance
Red Star also won championship in 1953, however, real changes would yet follow in the middle of the decade, when a stable club structure was formed with Dušan Blagojević acting as president, Slobodan Ćosić as secretary general and great Aca Obradović, famous for his nickname Doctor O, acting as technical director of the club.
They prepared the ground for the generation that would fully dominate Yugoslav football scene in the following five years, leaving their stamp on the European scene as well. It was a team of players such as Beara, Durković, Stanković, Popović, Mitić, Kostić, Šekularac... Those football players, whose names are still remembered, who are worldwide famous, will win four Yugoslav championships and two Cups, not missing a single trophy in those five seasons.
Red Star’s play was fast and offensive, bringing great popularity to the club both in the country and in the world. As they were gaining victories in the playing field, Obradović formed the ground for professional work that will later serve as the basis of great successes to be achieved by the club. Doctor O possessed an exceptional gift to recognize talents, and at the end of his career he transferred Mitić, Stanković, Toplak to the professional staff headquarters, and they will be dealing with football very successfully for several decades.
The sixties – a crisis and a new stadium
The end of the fifties was the first period of dominance of one club on the Yugoslav football scene, but the beginning of the decade to follow shifted the focus of events to the other side of Topčider Hill. In the following seven seasons, Red Star will win only one championship (which will not repeat before the nineties) and only one cup, its placement will be the worst in its history (seventh place in 1963) and it will even drop four times bellow the first three in the table (before and after that only seven times more has Red Star been bellow the third place in 54 football seasons in SFRY, FRY, SCG and Serbia).
Even then it was clear that Red Star was the most popular club in the country by far, and its defeats came down hard on its supporters, so accidents happened in which they used to burst into the field and literally burn both goals. In 1962–63 season, the club also set a negative record by scoring only 21 goals, which was, for example, half the result of Vojvodina, five places lower in the table.
Still, on the other hand, Red Star was developing and setting the final grounds for the great rise that followed - at the end of 1959 building of a new stadium began on the same spot that was occupied with the outdated Avala. In the following four years Red Star played as a host at the stadiums of Partizan and OFK Beograd (which can also be considered a reason for the bad results it achieved at that time), and the new building was opened on September 1 in 1963, when a match with Rijeka took place.
The first season on the stadium of its own, which could receive the amazing one hundred thousand people, was celebrated with double crown, seeing Miša Pavić off the bench who had won five trophies in the previous decade and who had set a record by keeping his place on the club’s bench seven seasons in a row.
The key moment took place in the summer of 1966, when Miljan Miljanić joined the club’s bench. For the following eight years, Miljanić will lead the club that grew into a highly-rated club in Europe. Up to then, Yugoslav football had gone through an introductory testing stage and a five-year dominance of Red Star and Partizan. In the remaining 25 years of the existence within the borders of the same country, Red Star will be a constant, whereas only rivals would change.
European and World Champions
In the summer of 1986 there were great changes in the club. The management run by Dragan Džajić and Vladimir Cvetković began to build a team that could compete with the most powerful European teams. During that summer Velibor Vasović sat on the bench, the first Serbian national to raise the European Cup’s cup, and the team was strengthened with a number of players, among whom Dragan Stojković and Bora Cvetković stood out.
In the first season that started with penalty points, Red Star focused on the European Cup, achieving good results. It was not later than the summer of 1987 that a five-year plan was developed with the goal to win the European Cup. The history is a witness that all the plans were fulfilled.
Starting from the club’s birthday in 1987, when Real Madrid was defeated at Marakana, through March 1992, Red Star lived the best period in its history. In the five seasons they won four championships (in 1989 Vojvodina was the championship winner with Šestić, Mihajlović, Ljupko Petrović as a coach and Kosanović as a director), in 1990 with as many as 11, and a year later with eight points of advantage compared to the first rivals (both times Dinamo). All four seasons in which Red Star won the championships it also played in the finals, but won the cup only in 1990.
The fact that Red Star was managed by as many as five coaches in the glorious five years’ period (Vasović, Stanković, Šekularac, Lj. Petrović and Popović) seems strange, but at the same time is a confirmation of extreme power of the red-and-white both in management and in the field. In the summer of 1987 Binić and Prosinečki arrived, and in the following order came Šabanadžović, Pančev, Savićević, Belodedić and Mihajlović. At the same time the youth school was working well, which brought Stojanović and Jugović to the club.
At the very beginning of the nineties, Red Star simply did not have any competition in domestic contests, whereas in Europe it was high ranking. Crvena zvezda have become European and World Champions having won the 1991 European Cup in Bari and 1991 Intercontinental Cup.
Although it was certain that transfers of at least several players would happen, the war in the Balkans, disintegration of Yugoslavia and sanctions imposed by the United Nations accelerated the process, which would, only thirteen months after Bari, practically leave Red Star without its entire generation of champions.
Honours
National Championships - 25 (record)
SFR Yugoslavia Champions (19):
1951, 1952–53, 1955–56, 1956–57, 1958–59, 1959–60, 1963–64, 1967–68, 1968–69, 1969–70, 1972–73, 1976–77, 1979–80, 1980–81, 1983–84, 1987–88, 1989–90, 1990–91, 1991–92
FR Yugoslavia / Serbia and Montenegro Champions (5):
1994–95, 1999–00, 2000–01, 2003–04, 2005−06
Champions of Serbia (1):
2006–07
National Cups - 23 (record)
Yugoslav Cup (12):
1947-48, 1948-49, 1950, 1957-58, 1958-59, 1963-64, 1967-68, 1969-70, 1970-71, 1981-82, 1984-85, 1989-90
FR Yugoslavia / Serbia and Montenegro Cup (9):
1992-93, 1994–95, 1995–96, 1996–97, 1998–99, 2000–01, 2001–02, 2003–04, 2005–06
Serbian Cup (2):
2006-07, 2009-10
International titles - 4
European Cup (defunct, succeeded by UEFA Champions League):
Champions (1): 1990–91
Intercontinental Cup (defunct, succeeded by FIFA Club World Cup):
Champions (1): 1991
Mitropa Cup (defunct):
Champions (2): 1958, 1968
Other tournaments
Paris tournament (1): 1962
Iberico Trophy (1): 1971
Teresa Herrera Trophy (1): 1971
Trofeo Costa del Sol (1): 1973
Orange Trophy (1): 1973
World of Soccer Cup (defunct):
Winners, Singapore Trophy (1): 1977
Runners-up, Australian Trophy (1): 1977
Trofeo Villa de Gijón (1): 1982
New year torunament (Zurich, Switzerland) (1): 1984
Chicago Sister Cities International Cup (1): 2010
[edit]European Competitions
Red Star is the most successful team from Serbia (and Yugoslavia); it competed in Europe 49 times, and most notable results are:
European Cup (defunct, succeeded by UEFA Champions League):
Winner (1): 1990–91
Semi-finalists (3): 1956–57, 1970–71, 1991–92
Quarter-finalists (5): 1957–58, 1973–74, 1980–81, 1981–82, 1986–87,
UEFA Cup Winners' Cup (defunct):
Semi-finalists (1): 1974–75
Quarter-finalists (2): 1971–72, 1985–86
UEFA Cup (defunct, succeeded by UEFA Europa League):
Runners-up (1): 1978–79
UEFA Super Cup:
Runners-up (1): 1991
Inter-Cities Fairs Cup (defunct, succeeded by UEFA Cup):
Semi-finalists (1): 1961–62
Quarter-finalists (1): 1962–63
The 1991 European and International Champions Generation
Goalkeepers:
Milić Jovanović
Željko Kaluđerović
Stevan Stojanović (captain)
Defenders:
Miodrag Belodedić
Slobodan Marović
Ivica Momčilović
Ilija Najdoski
Duško Radinović
Refik Šabanadžović
Goran Vasilijević
Midfielders:
Vladimir Jugović
Siniša Mihajlović
Robert Prosinečki
Dejan Savićević
Vlada Stošić
Rade Tošić
Strikers:
Dragiša Binić
Vladan Lukić
Darko Pančev
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