All about the next opponent: Interview with Belgrade fan Denis | OneFootball

Even in the Cham­pi­ons League, sup­po­sedly easier oppon­ents are now on the schedule—but does that app­ly to Red Star Bel­gra­de, who are still wit­hout a point? We spo­ke about this with Crve­na zvez­da fan Denis.

With the Red Stri­pe: Hel­lo Denis, plea­se intro­du­ce yours­elf brief­ly and tell us about your con­nec­tion to Red Star Bel­gra­de.

Denis: Hel­lo, my name is Denis, I’m 39 years old, live in Frank­furt, and have been a Red Star Bel­gra­de fan sin­ce the mid-90s. For a few years now, I’ve also been a mem­ber and sea­son ticket hol­der.

How is Red Star Belgrade’s sea­son going, both natio­nal­ly and inter­na­tio­nal­ly? Are peo­p­le satis­fied?

Natio­nal­ly, after 16 match­days, we’re in 1st place with an ele­ven-point lead over Mla­dost Luča­ni and two games in hand. Inter­na­tio­nal­ly… well, we’re still wit­hout a point, unfort­u­na­te­ly. Of cour­se, the fans are dis­sa­tis­fied, but when you look at our oppon­ents so far, Mona­co, Inter, and Bar­ca are curr­ent­ly in 3rd, 5th, and 6th places. They’re not the­re by chan­ce. We could’ve got­ten more out of the Ben­fi­ca game. To be fair, though, seve­ral key play­ers are inju­red. Our first-choice goal­kee­per Omri Gla­zer has been out for a while, Peter Olay­in­ka is out for the rest of the sea­son, Mir­ko Ivanić—our crea­ti­ve mid­field linchpin—was side­lined for a long time, and Ognjen Mimo­vić is just now retur­ning from his inju­ry against Ben­fi­ca. Com­pe­ting in the Cham­pi­ons League wit­hout a full-strength squad is always tough.

How do you assess your chan­ces of advan­cing in the Cham­pi­ons League?

Well, it’s halft­i­me, and we still have four games to play, but rea­li­sti­cal­ly, I don’t belie­ve we’ll advan­ce. We’d need three wins out of four games, and our oppon­ents are VfB Stutt­gart, AC Milan, PSV, and Young Boys Bern. If we want to stay in the race, we have to win both of our home games. A win against VfB is a must. I don’t expect points against Milan, but with the right approach, we can win away at Young Boys.

Sin­ce 2018, Red Star Bel­gra­de has been the Ser­bi­an league’s seri­al cham­pi­on. What’s the secret to your suc­cess?

We have an excel­lent youth aca­de­my, with two or three talents making it to the first team every year. In addi­ti­on, expe­ri­en­ced play­ers bring rou­ti­ne and skill that make a dif­fe­rence. Natu­ral­ly, we also have the big­gest bud­get in Ser­bia, which allows us to buy hig­her-qua­li­ty play­ers. The com­pe­ti­ti­on main­ly comes from Par­tizan, who’ve had finan­cial pro­blems for years, and that’s reflec­ted in their squad qua­li­ty.

Is the­re frus­tra­ti­on about not having much inter­na­tio­nal suc­cess despi­te being peren­ni­al cham­pi­ons?

In terms of squad strength, we’d be bet­ter sui­ted to the Euro­pa League, but the fans’ expec­ta­ti­on is for Red Star to mea­su­re up against Europe’s best. Are we tru­ly frus­tra­ted? Yes and no. On one hand, fans want to see a con­sis­tent impro­ve­ment in the squad and bet­ter results on the Euro­pean stage. This is the big­gest cri­ti­cism fans have of the club’s lea­der­ship. We spend a lot of money by Ser­bi­an stan­dards, yet good results remain elu­si­ve. Fans want the club to be com­pe­ti­ti­ve inter­na­tio­nal­ly. On the other hand, one should remem­ber whe­re we came from. The 2010s were real­ly tough; we were on the ver­ge of bank­rupt­cy. The­re are some wild sto­ries about tho­se times…

Befo­re the game, VfB Stutt­gart war­ned its fans to be cau­tious in Bel­gra­de, as it could be very dan­ge­rous for visi­ting sup­port­ers. How do you assess the situa­ti­on?

I found VfB’s wor­ding a bit unfort­u­na­te. In prin­ci­ple, Ser­bi­ans are very hos­pi­ta­ble, so I don’t think much will hap­pen as long as you behave respectful­ly. Stutt­gart fans shouldn’t come with the mind­set of “taking over the city.” Cau­ti­on is always advi­sa­ble, but I think you can share a beer or two with some home fans in the bars. It’s work­ed out with other visi­ting fans in the past.

The ultra group “Deli­je” is famous for their loud sup­port. Should we expect a caul­dron-like atmo­sphe­re?

In Euro­pean matches, things are a bit more sub­dued becau­se UEFA has alre­a­dy threa­ten­ed us with exclu­si­on from inter­na­tio­nal com­pe­ti­ti­on. It won’t be as inten­se as a der­by against Par­tizan, but the atmo­sphe­re will still be incre­di­ble. The fans know how important the match against Stutt­gart is, and the­re will be cho­reo­gra­phies and 90 minu­tes of sin­ging. The only issue could be the kick­off time, as many fans tra­vel from all over Ser­bia and even from neigh­bor­ing count­ries.

Silas, a cur­rent VfB play­er, is on loan to you. How would you eva­lua­te his per­for­mance?

Loo­king at the stats, Silas has three goals and one assist in six games, inclu­ding one goal in the Cham­pi­ons League against Bar­ce­lo­na. Among tho­se three goals was one in the der­by against Par­tizan. Sounds good at first glan­ce, but Silas came to us with a €10 mil­li­on pri­ce tag, which is astro­no­mic­al for a play­er main­ly com­pe­ting in the Ser­bi­an league. Silas has occa­sio­nal good moments, but some­ti­mes he looks out of place in the team, and his body lan­guage isn’t always gre­at. There’s defi­ni­te­ly room for impro­ve­ment.

How would you descri­be your style of play? What are your strengths and weak­ne­s­ses?

On the inter­na­tio­nal stage, Red Star plays more cau­tious­ly than in the Ser­bi­an league, whe­re we press high and crea­te chan­ces with quick com­bi­na­ti­on play. Inter­na­tio­nal­ly, that’s rare­ly suc­cessful. Silas’s goal against Bar­ce­lo­na show­ca­ses our style well.

Our big­gest strengths are the sta­di­um and the fans, who crea­te a uni­que atmo­sphe­re and dri­ve the team. Liver­pool and Jür­gen Klopp know what I’m tal­king about. Weak­ne­s­ses include our back­up goal­kee­per, Mar­ko Ilić, who will likely be in goal. He doesn’t inspi­re con­fi­dence, makes the defen­se ner­vous, and hasn’t made any game-chan­ging saves. Milan Rodić (left-back) is pro­ne to errors and isn’t the qui­ckest. Over­all, Red Star seems too ner­vous in the ope­ning minu­tes and often men­tal­ly checks out during stop­pa­ge time of the first half.

Which play­ers should VfB watch out for? Who are the key play­ers?

Andri­ja Mak­si­mo­vić is our big­gest talent. At 17 years old, he plays fearless­ly and is very crea­ti­ve. VfB should par­ti­cu­lar­ly watch out for Silas 😂. I think and hope he’ll want to pro­ve hims­elf against Stutt­gart. You alre­a­dy know about his speed. Nas­ser Dji­ga is our best defen­der, strong in duels both on the ground and in the air. Mir­ko Iva­nić is retur­ning from inju­ry. Let’s see if he starts against Stutt­gart. He’s an expe­ri­en­ced play­er with gre­at visi­on. He’s always a thre­at when he’s having a good day.

Your pre­dic­tion and fee­lings about the game?

I’m, of cour­se, hoping for a win. In this sta­di­um, any­thing is pos­si­ble! It remains to be seen which inju­red play­ers will return. If we don’t start too ner­vous­ly and play our style of foot­ball, I’m opti­mi­stic we’ll secu­re our first win. My pre­dic­tion is 2–1.

Note: This inter­view was trans­la­ted from Ger­man via ChatGPT

Pic­tu­re: © Srd­jan Stevanovic/Getty Images