“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
Successful dribbles: 21. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad1 Feb 2027
Words at Crvena Zvezda training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Miloš Veljković is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Nair Tiknizyan was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
“I watch every Crvena Zvezda game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Gomel runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
The ambition story running the other way, and the one nobody tells: a footballer asking for a smaller stage, fewer cameras and a crowd that does not turn. It is not weakness and it is very rarely reported as anything else.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.96 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Tomás Händel was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Marked 8.00 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Crvena Zvezda, and 3 appearances in 17 say he has earned the hearing.
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Crvena Zvezda hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Crvena Zvezda this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
At 18 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Vasilije Kostov. 1‑0 against IMT, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
“I watch every Crvena Zvezda game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Radnicki 1923 runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
There is no crueller way to lose a football match. Crvena Zvezda scored in the 90th minute, the restart barely happened, and the away end was still standing when the whistle went.
0‑1 against Ajax. Continental football is unforgiving about the things a domestic league lets a side get away with, and this was a night spent finding out which of those the club still has.
At 35 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 7.85 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Timi Max Elšnik was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
The medical room confirms 17 days on the sidelines for Bruno Duarte, and a plan built around him now has to be rebuilt.
Match3 Oct 2026
Another one collected away from home
4 on the bounce on the road for Crvena Zvezda. The coaches leave early, arrive at unlovely grounds in the dark, and keep coming home with three points.
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Temirlan Anarbekov is living that version at Crvena Zvezda, and it tends to show in the first month.
Nobody at the club will say out loud who this signing is for, which is how you know exactly who it is for. Temirlan Anarbekov has been brought in to take a shirt somebody is still wearing.
The terraces31 Aug 2026
Crvena Zvezda spend $2.6M on the signing the town wanted
It is the rarest sequence in football: supporters ask for something, and the club goes and does it. $2.6M for Temirlan Anarbekov, and for one week nobody is complaining about anything.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
A 2‑1 win over Zeleznicar Pancevo, a place in the next round, and the quiet arithmetic every supporter does on the walk home: how many more until a final?
There is no crueller way to lose a football match. Crvena Zvezda scored in the 99th minute, the restart barely happened, and the away end was still standing when the whistle went.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.96 at 37, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Jovan Popović will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Crvena Zvezda the goodbyes have quietly begun.
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
At 18 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
The offer from Javor-Matis for Jovan Trač was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Baptiste Roux is living that version at Crvena Zvezda, and it tends to show in the first month.
The chase for Baptiste Roux ended with $680.0K changing hands and TSC out of reasons to say no. The supporters will judge the fee the only way that matters: on Saturdays.
Miloš Veljković was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Rade Krunić falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Both sides expect a conversation in the coming days. Crvena Zvezda will name a price, and everything after that is arithmetic.
Squad17 Aug 2026
The division's best last weekend was a Crvena Zvezda man
It is a small honour and it is not nothing: somebody watched every match in the division and decided that Mirko Ivanić was the best thing in any of them.