Marked for Rade Krunić
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad5 Apr 2027
Miloš Veljković 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.
Squad5 Apr 2027
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.
Market5 Apr 2027
Both sides expect a conversation in the coming days. Crvena Zvezda will name a price, and everything after that is arithmetic.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad30 Nov 2026
Aleksandar Katai damages knee ligaments — 142 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 142 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Player ratings30 Nov 2026
Successful dribbles: 37. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Match28 Nov 2026
0‑0. Continental football is where a club finds out what it actually is, and Crvena Zvezda came through the finding-out well against Mlada Boleslav.
Squad30 Nov 2026
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.
Squad30 Nov 2026
Words at Crvena Zvezda training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Rade Krunić 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.
Squad30 Nov 2026
The manager makes an example of Rade Krunić
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Player ratings30 Nov 2026
The afternoon belonged to Mirko Ivanić
A mark of 7.65, and nobody in the ground would argue with it. He was involved in everything that mattered and most of what did not.
Player ratings30 Nov 2026
7.31, and no serious argument from anybody who was there. Crvena Zvezda had eleven men on the pitch and one of them decided how it went.
Match28 Nov 2026
A 1‑1 draw with Vojvodina leaves the dressing room somewhere between relief and regret.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Player ratings16 Nov 2026
Successful dribbles: 25. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Market16 Nov 2026
“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.
Squad16 Nov 2026
Miloš Veljković 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.
Match14 Nov 2026
It finished 1‑0, and it was Timi Max Elšnik’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Crvena Zvezda.
Player ratings16 Nov 2026
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.40, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Loan watch16 Nov 2026
“I did not go to Vorskla to sit and watch. I want to come back to Crvena Zvezda and fight for my place.” 0 appearances in 9 matches say the rest.
Squad16 Nov 2026
Rodrigão gets it from the manager
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Squad16 Nov 2026
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.
Squad16 Nov 2026
One booking too many, and Rade Krunić sits out. Crvena Zvezda lose him for the sort of avoidable reason that makes a manager's week longer.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Player ratings9 Nov 2026
Successful dribbles: 47. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Match9 Nov 2026
28 points on the board and a place in the leading group. Nobody at the ground is saying the word out loud yet.
Match7 Nov 2026
0‑1 away to the standard of Porto. Nobody will pretend this was a scandal; the gap is real, it is measurable, and closing it is a project rather than a team talk.
Market9 Nov 2026
Matheus wants to know where this is going
“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.
Squad9 Nov 2026
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.
Squad9 Nov 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.
Squad9 Nov 2026
The team sheet said everything about Marko Arnautović
Warm-up bib, ninety minutes of watching, and a handshake at the end that fooled nobody. Big matches tell you who a manager trusts; this one told Marko Arnautović.
Squad9 Nov 2026
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
Player ratings9 Nov 2026
7.28, and no serious argument from anybody who was there. Crvena Zvezda had eleven men on the pitch and one of them decided how it went.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Player ratings26 Oct 2026
Successful dribbles: 41. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Match24 Oct 2026
0‑1 away to the standard of Porto. Nobody will pretend this was a scandal; the gap is real, it is measurable, and closing it is a project rather than a team talk.
Player ratings26 Oct 2026
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 8.48, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Player ratings26 Oct 2026
At 37 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 7.80 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Squad26 Oct 2026
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.
Match24 Oct 2026
A 3‑1 win over Zeleznicar Pancevo, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Pavlo Isenko in a row with a teammate
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.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Rade Krunić gets it from the manager
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Squad26 Oct 2026
No place for Mirko Ivanić on the big day
He found out with everybody else, an hour before kick-off, from a sheet of paper on a wall. Nobody at Crvena Zvezda pretended it was anything other than a decision about him.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Player ratings19 Oct 2026
Successful dribbles: 24. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad19 Oct 2026
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.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Words at Crvena Zvezda training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Rade Krunić 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.
Loan watch19 Oct 2026
“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 0 appearances in 5 say he has earned the hearing.
Squad19 Oct 2026
A promise honoured for Jay Enem
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Crvena Zvezda told Jay Enem something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
Squad19 Oct 2026
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.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 44. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
At 37 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.00 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Squad17 Aug 2026
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.
Market17 Aug 2026
The interest is real enough to have reached print. Crvena Zvezda have said nothing, which in a transfer window is its own kind of answer.
Market17 Aug 2026
The Jay Enem conversation is coming
Everyone has stopped pretending: MTK Budapest will make the call about Jay Enem this week. Crvena Zvezda have a number in mind, and the number is not shy.
Match15 Aug 2026
It finished 1‑0, and it was Marko Arnautović’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Crvena Zvezda.
Squad17 Aug 2026
He wheeled away like a man who had been carrying it for months, because he had. Crvena Zvezda have their signing off the mark and one press-conference question retired.
Squad17 Aug 2026
The shape wanted a different profile against this opponent, which is a real football answer and no comfort at all to the man it is about. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Match1 Aug 2026
Some goals win a match and some take one off somebody else. Loizos Loizou scored in the 88th minute, Javor-Matis had already begun thinking about the journey home, and Crvena Zvezda took the lot.
Player ratings3 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 30. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Market3 Aug 2026
Smorgon come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Crvena Zvezda did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Market3 Aug 2026
Marko Arnautović wants to know where this is going
“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.
Squad3 Aug 2026
“The easiest signature of my career.” Marko Arnautović and Crvena Zvezda agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad3 Aug 2026
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.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Miloš Veljković 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.
The terraces3 Aug 2026
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Loizos Loizou has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.