“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.
Squad29 Mar 2027
Words at Crvena Zvezda training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Vukašin Jovanović 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.
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.
Marko Mladenović 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.
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.
Squad15 Mar 2027
Words at Crvena Zvezda training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Mohamed Abo Fani 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.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Jovan Popović and Crvena Zvezda agree another 4 years.
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.
“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 2 appearances in 6 say he has earned the hearing.
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.
Squad1 Mar 2027
Words at Crvena Zvezda training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Mohamed Abo Fani 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.
He has had enough of the noise. Whether Crvena Zvezda can be a quieter place for him, or whether the only cure is a move somewhere the phone-ins are gentler, is a question for the next few months.
Position 1, 60 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
There is no crueller way to lose a football match. Crvena Zvezda scored in the 104th minute, the restart barely happened, and the away end was still standing when the whistle went.
4 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
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.
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.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
“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.
3 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
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.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Nemanja Radonjić provided it, and the 8.79 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Crvena Zvezda heard it as anything else.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Lorenzo Fernández has just signed for Crvena Zvezda, and for once the answer mattered.
A 3‑2 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.
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.
8 attempts, none of them in. He got into the right places all afternoon, which is the hard part, and did the easy part badly — and that is the version of a bad day a manager can live with.
Jay Enem 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.
There are goals, and then there are goals against that particular opponent. The Crvena Zvezda support have their bragging rights for a year and they know exactly whose name is on them.
“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.
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.
10 goals and a season average of 7.31. Form like that gets noticed well beyond this town.
Squad1 Feb 2027
Words at Crvena Zvezda training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Mohamed Abo Fani 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.
“I watch every Crvena Zvezda game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Javor-Matis runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
In brief
Loan watchThe goals keep arriving from Milson’s exile
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.
Napredak held the lead for 3 minutes, which is not long enough to enjoy it. Crvena Zvezda answered before the celebration had properly finished, and the shape of the afternoon changed with it.
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Răzvan Sava, and the manager let it.
Squad25 Jan 2027
The manager has not finished forgetting Marko Arnautović's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
Every touch is being weighed now, in print and everywhere else. Some players grow into that and some are quietly ruined by it, and nobody knows which in advance.
In brief
Player ratingsThe one thing Mirko Ivanić could not do
Ninety minutes of very little, and then everything at once. The winner arrived in the 86th, and Radnicki 1923 spent what remained of the match appealing to the referee rather than chasing the ball.
Momentum is a hard thing to buy and an easy thing to lose, and right now Crvena Zvezda have 3 straight wins of it.
Squad18 Jan 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 NK Celje runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Marko Mladenović is living that version at Crvena Zvezda, and it tends to show in the first month.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.32 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
The fee is $790.0K, the contract is signed, and the argument about whether he is worth it can begin. IMT drove a hard bargain; time will say who won it.
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.
The most awkward business a club does is signing tomorrow's answer while today's is still in the building. Marko Mladenović comes from Vojvodina for exactly that purpose, and the handover will not be discussed publicly by anybody.
21 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
Two goals and a mark of 8.63 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
An individual honour is a strange thing in a team game, and the best of them are never argued with. He has had the sort of year that ends with his name being read out, and Crvena Zvezda have had the benefit of it.
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.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 22 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Jay Enem 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.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Crvena Zvezda have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.26 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
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.
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.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Crvena Zvezda heard it as anything else.
4 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
4 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Crvena Zvezda can tell you which week it ends in.
Successful dribbles: 19. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad21 Dec 2026
Words at Crvena Zvezda training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nair Tiknizyan 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.
7 attempts, none of them in. He got into the right places all afternoon, which is the hard part, and did the easy part badly — and that is the version of a bad day a manager can live with.
Marko Veličković 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 NK Celje runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
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.
3 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
18 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
The music was off and the showers ran late. What was said in that dressing room stays there, but Saturday will publish the minutes.
Squad14 Dec 2026
The manager has not finished forgetting Marko Arnautović's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
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.
Shots: 6. Goals: none. The chances were there and they were good ones, and they went into the stand, the goalkeeper's arms and the side netting in roughly that order.
He is the name in every column and on every phone-in, which is a heavy thing to carry at any age. Some footballers thrive on it; others are quietly finished by it.
In brief
Player ratingsThe chances came and went for Mirko Ivanić
3‑1 against MSK Zilina, and a performance that will be described to people who were not there for the rest of the season. Marko Arnautović was at the centre of the description.
The hardest thing about being 18 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Vasilije Kostov did not need any: 8.30, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
At 33 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.37 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
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.
Two goals and a mark of 9.06 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Marko Veličković 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.
Shots: 10. Goals: none. The chances were there and they were good ones, and they went into the stand, the goalkeeper's arms and the side netting in roughly that order.
Boardroom23 Nov 2026
Nobody left the Crvena Zvezda dressing room in a hurry
The door stayed shut a long time after the final whistle. What was said in there is between them; whether it worked is between them and Saturday.
In brief
SquadWords at Crvena Zvezda training over how hard people work
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.14 at 37, and nobody on the pitch was better.
“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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Nemanja Radonjić. 3‑2 against Javor-Matis, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
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.
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.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.81 at 37, and nobody on the pitch was better.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Crvena Zvezda heard it as anything else.
3 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
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.
Marked 9.97 — 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.
Going 2 down does something to a side, and what it usually does is finish them. Not here. Crvena Zvezda rebuilt the afternoon goal by goal, and IMT had no answer to any of it.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Nemanja Radonjić provided it, and the 10.00 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
“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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Nemanja Radonjić. 3‑2 against IMT, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Player ratings2 Nov 2026
Timi Max Elšnik was on a different afternoon to everybody else
9.09. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
Shots: 7. Goals: none. The chances were there and they were good ones, and they went into the stand, the goalkeeper's arms and the side netting in roughly that order.
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.
2‑3 against Gaziantep. 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 33 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.34 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
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.
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and Crvena Zvezda know it.
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.
2‑1 against Partizan, and the songs went on long after the whistle. League positions come and go; days like this get retold at family dinners for years.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Crvena Zvezda have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
There are goals, and then there are goals against that particular opponent. The Crvena Zvezda support have their bragging rights for a year and they know exactly whose name is on them.
2 goals before the ground had finished arriving. Partizan spent the rest of the afternoon playing a match that had already been decided, and everybody in the stadium knew it.
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.
“I watch every Crvena Zvezda game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Spartak Subotica runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
5 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
4 shots, and a count that reads like a good afternoon until you check the other column. Strikers survive weeks like this on the understanding that the chances keep arriving; the day they stop is the day it becomes a problem.
Two goals and a mark of 8.17 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.33 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
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.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 18 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
At 24 the improving is meant to be over. It is not: 3 points better than the mark taken at the start of the year, which is the sort of thing that happens to players who take the boring parts of the job seriously.
“I watch every Crvena Zvezda game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at NK Celje runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
1‑3 away to the standard of Monaco. 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.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.66 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
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.
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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Mirko Ivanić. 2‑1 against Radnicki 1923, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 8.61, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
Vasilije Kostov, 18, plays like he has been here for years — 8.74
A mark of 8.74 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 18-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Mirko Ivanić. 3‑1 against Mladost Lucani, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 18-year-old it feels ownership of. Vasilije Kostov 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.
2 goals before the ground had finished arriving. Mladost Lucani spent the rest of the afternoon playing a match that had already been decided, and everybody in the stadium knew it.
8.18. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
0‑0 against MSK Zilina, under lights, against people who do not speak the same language as the crowd. These are the evenings a club measures its decade in, and there are never as many of them as anybody expects.
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.
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.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 16 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
A player who expected to start watched it instead. The manager will call it a decision for the team; Mohamed Abo Fani will call it something else in private.
26 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
“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.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Alejo Antilef has just signed for Crvena Zvezda, and for once the answer mattered.
Squad14 Sep 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.
3 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
Srđan Mijailović 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.
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.
In brief
Player ratingsThe one thing Tomás Händel could not do
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.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Marko Veličković has just signed for Crvena Zvezda, and for once the answer mattered.
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.
Every touch is being weighed now, in print and everywhere else. Some players grow into that and some are quietly ruined by it, and nobody knows which in advance.
Shots: 4. Goals: none. The chances were there and they were good ones, and they went into the stand, the goalkeeper's arms and the side netting in roughly that order.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Răzvan Sava has just signed for Crvena Zvezda, and for once the answer mattered.
Every dressing room knows how to read a signing like this one. Răzvan Sava is not here to sit and wait indefinitely, and the man whose place he has been bought to take knows it better than anyone.
23 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
Boards get told what they have done wrong for years and hear nothing on the days they get it right. This is one of those days: Răzvan Sava from Universitatea Craiova for $3.9M, and a ticket office having a very good morning.
“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.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Words at Crvena Zvezda training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nair Tiknizyan 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.
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
4 shots, and a count that reads like a good afternoon until you check the other column. Strikers survive weeks like this on the understanding that the chances keep arriving; the day they stop is the day it becomes a problem.
Zeleznicar Pancevo are out and Crvena Zvezda go through, 2‑1 the final word. The bracket opens up a little, and everyone allows themselves a look at it.
Miloš Veljković had done his part in building a 2-goal cushion. What happened after that was collective, and Radnicki Nis were allowed back into a match that had been finished with.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Crvena Zvezda, and it is not being withdrawn.
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.
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.
8.76. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
Marked 8.41. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Crvena Zvezda.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Vladimir Lučić was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.36. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
Vasilije Kostov, 18, plays like he has been here for years — 8.16
A mark of 8.16 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 18-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
The offer from Radnicki 1923 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.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Milan Đoković has just signed for Crvena Zvezda, and for once the answer mattered.
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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 18-year-old it feels ownership of. Vasilije Kostov 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.
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.67, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Words at Crvena Zvezda training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nair Tiknizyan 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.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Srđan Mijailović is living that version at Crvena Zvezda, and it tends to show in the first month.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Crvena Zvezda heard it as anything else.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Miloš Veljković and Crvena Zvezda agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
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.
Add another name to the list: Radnicki 1923 have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Jovan Trač. The answer from Crvena Zvezda has not changed — yet.
“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.
“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.
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 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 8.90 — 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.