By SerbianLad
Red Star (or Crvena Zvezda in Serbian) is Serbia’s most successful football club with 60 domestic titles (32 league titles), 3 European titles (CL x1, Mitropa x2) and a club world cup title. They competed in European cups group stages in every year beggining with 2017, having missed group stages for 10 years prior to that.
Their team:
Expected starters:
Milan Borjan, 34, goalkeeper, captain, Canadian national team vice-captain, great shot-stopper, distribution far from excellent, very good at time wasting.
Cristiano Piccini, 29, right back, winter signing from Valencia, has 3 caps for Italy, looks like a good signing so far.
Strahinja Eraković, 21, center back, youth product, Serbian youth international, had mixed performances in Europe so far.
Aleksandar Dragović, 31, center back, second in Austria’s all time most capped players list, very experienced, composed, calm, one of the leaders of the team.
Milan Rodić, 30, left back, 7 caps for Serbia, decent defender, decent crosser, terrible stamina, been with the club since the beginning of this new successful period in clubs history.
Slavoljub Srnić, 30, Swiss army knife of a player, he can play in almost every position bar goalkeeper, this season mostly used as a defensive midfielder, not really good at anything but extremely hard-working.
Sékou Sanogo, 32, defensive midfielder, 3 caps for Ivory Coast, combative midfielder, excellent stamina, very dirty player that gets lots of yellow and red cards.
Guélor Kanga, 31, predominantly an attacking midfielder, but can play as an “8”, 57 caps for Gabon, an unpredictable player, on his day one of the best midfielders outside top five leagues, when his not having his day he is often one of the worst players on the pitch. Arsenal FC legend Tomas Rosicky famously said that if Kanga had the mentality, he would be one of the stars in one of the top 5 european leagues. Scores screamers oftenly.
Mirko Ivanić, 28, predominantly an attacking midfielder, usually plays on the wing, product of Vojvodina’s youth system (same club that produced Sergej Milinković-Savić and Dušan Tadić most notably), Red Star’s best player, highly skilled with excellent passing ability.
Aleksandar Katai, 31, predominantly an attacking midfielder, 10 caps for Serbia usually plays on the wing, another Vojvodina youth product, fans favourite, wears the number 10 shirt, nicknamed Magiko (magic man), full of tricks, excellent set piece taker, a bit slow for a winger.
Ohi Omoijuanfo, 28, striker, winter signing, scored 27 in 29 for Molde in Norway last season, already has 4 in 5 for Red Star including a goal in the “eternal derby”, looks like a world class finisher.
SUBS:-
Milan Pavkov, 28, striker, fans favourite, scored a brace in a 2-0 win against Liverpool in December 2018, excellent in the air, cannon of a right foot, a bit thuggish oftenly.
El Fardou Mohamed Ben Nabouhane, 32, winger/striker, Comoros national team vice-captain and all time top scorer, highest scoring foreigner in Serbian league history, another fans favourite.
Nemanja Motika, 18, winger, winter signing, Bayern Munich youth product, highly rated Serbian youth international who also played a match for the German youth national team.
Nenad Krstičić, 31, midfielder, experienced player that played in Italian and Spanish league, usually comes on to see the game out.
Radovan Pankov, 26, center back, a reckless player, comes on to see the game out, starts games sometimes when Red Star want to play 5 at the back.
Milan Gajić, 26, right back, was vey good at youth level, didn’t make a good transition to senior football, average player.
Filippo Falco, 30, Italian winger/attacking midfielder, was a fans favourite at Lecce before coming to Red Star, highly skillful, very lightweight.
This season so far:
In the league, they are sitting at 2nd place at the table at the moment, two points behind their rivals Partizan. Their only loss this game came in October, against a pretty bad team, Radnik Surdulica. However, their league record shouldn’t mean much, as the league is of pretty poor quality. Their win against rivals Partizan and their most recent 5-0 win should give them some confidence though.
In Europe, they started in CL qualifing. They’ve lost their first game against Kairat 2-1, but won the reverse fixture 5-0. Then they drew with Sheriff, but lost the reverse fixture 1-0 (worth nothing that Sheriff eliminated Dinamo Zagreb and went on to beat Real Madrid in the CL group stage). After that loss, they continued their European journey in the Europa qualifying, beating CFR Cluj 2 times(4-0 and 2-1). In Europa League group stage, they topped their group with Braga, Midtjylland and Ludogorets with 3 wins, 2 draws and a loss. It is worth nothing that in the loss against Midtjylland they played with 10 men for almost the entire match. Another point worth nothing is the fact that all of their Europa League games were low scoring(2-1,0-1,1-0 wins, two 1-1 draws and a 0-1 loss).
