The beginning of the end for a great team: Red Star Belgrade celebrates winning the national championship cup in 1991.
Photo: imago/Werek
Big football is coming back to Belgrade this Wednesday. Well, not big football, not Liverpool, Barcelona or Bayern – clubs that Fudbalski Klub Crvena Zvezda has already measured against. The slightly faded Red Star welcomes Pjunik Yerevan, after all one of Armenia’s most famous teams. The third qualifying round for the Champions League will be played, the penultimate hurdle on the way to the holy of holies in the European football circus. Where FK Red Star Belgrade once set the pace.
The beginning of the end for a great team: Red Star Belgrade celebrates winning the national championship cup in 1991.
Photo: imago/Werek
31 years ago, the red star shone not only in the Rajko Mitic stadium, which everyone in Belgrade just calls Marakana because it curves in a similar way to the football cathedral in Rio de Janeiro. In the summer of 1991, the Champions League was still called the European Cup and the regent resided in Belgrade. Red Star fielded a team that today is hard to imagine as a collection of nameless people. Miodrag Belodedic, who had already won the national championship cup in 1986 with Steaua Bucharest, directed the defence, at that time still under the name Belodedici. The turmoil of the geopolitical turning point had washed the members of the Serbian minority in Romania into the homeland of their ancestors. In midfield, Robert Prosinecki pulled the strings, a native of Schwenninger whose parents came from Serbia and Croatia, which was nothing unusual in the early 1990s, at least outside of what was then called Yugoslavia. He was assisted by Montenegrin strategist Dejan Savicevic, while Macedonian Darko Pancev was in charge of scoring.
FC Bayern got to feel how good this team was in the semi-finals. In the first leg in Munich’s Olympic Stadium, Pancev and Prosinecki scored a sensational 2-1 win. In the second leg in the Marakana, a 2-2 draw was enough to get into the final against the favored French side from Olympique Marseille, who had a certain Franz Beckenbauer as sporting director in the first year after winning the World Cup. Not much happened in Bari for 90 minutes, and even less in extra time. However, all five of the Belgraders scored in the penalty shootout, and since Manuel Amoros was the first French player to miss the ball, the trophy went to Belgrade.
It was the beginning of the end for this team. On the one hand, the triumph of the now no longer nameless aroused desires throughout Europe. On the other hand, Serbs, Croats and Montenegrins didn’t get along as well in everyday life as their compatriots who played football on the lawn of the Belgrade Marakana. The Balkan War made Yugoslavia – or what was left of it – the pariah of the world community. The national team was banned internationally and was not allowed to take part in the 1992 European Championships, Red Star had to withdraw from all international competitions. The team disintegrated. Robert Prosinecki moved to Real Madrid, Dejan Savicevic to AC Milan, Darko Pancev to neighbors Inter, Miodrag Belodedic to FC Valencia.
The Red Star would never again shine as brightly as it did on that night in Bari. Just twice since then, the pride of Serbia has made it into the group stage of the Champions League. Great football rarely strays to Belgrade these days. Pjunik Yerevan is coming on Wednesday.
