Written by Mark Strange.
Red Star Belgrade – Crvena Zvezda in the native tongue – may be the most successful club in their nation’s history with 76 major honours but they are actually quite a young club in comparison to a lot of European heavyweights (including Larne!) The club was founded in 1945 by members of the Serbian United Antifascist Youth League after all pre-war Serbian clubs had been abolished. They adopted the name and symbol of Serbian nationalism within Yugoslavia and played their first ever game in February of that year against the People’s Defence Corps of Yugoslavia (KNOJ).
They won their first title a year later with a People’s Republic of Serbia title before a first Yugoslav First League title came in 1951. They made a first appearance on the European stage in the second season of the European Cup in 1956/57 having won the title the previous season. They reached the semi-finals after victories over Rapid JC and CDNA Sofia before being edged out by runners-up Fiorentina 1-0 on aggregate in the last four.
A year later, they were defeated 5-4 on aggregate in the quarter-finals by Manchester United in a thrilling tie. However, that tie would become infamous as the last game The Busby Babes played. During that time, one of their star players was Rajko Mitic who the club’s Marakana Stadium was named after in 2014.
The club’s first success on the continent came in the Mitropa Cup in 1968 when they defeated Spartak Trnava 4-2 on aggregate in the final while continuing their domestic dominance having won a further ten league titles. During the 70s, Red Star would make waves in Europe again with big wins over the likes of Liverpool and Real Madrid before they made a first major European final in 1979 as they made the final of the UEFA Cup, defeating Arsenal along the way before falling 2-1 on aggregate to Borussia Monchengladbach in the final.
Despite this, Red Star only won two league titles in the 70s with one coming under manager Gojko Zec in 1977 and he returned in 1983 to repeat the feat again despite only one member of his previous squad remaining. The club would win the league title in 1986 but only after bitter rivals Partizan (more on them later) were stripped of the title after a match-fixing scandal. Despite this, Red Star were also implicated and docked points for the next season, resulting in Zec’s exit.
This caused the club to reset and they devised a five year plan with the ultimate goal of winning the European Cup. This seemed like a lofty goal at the time but the club achieved it right on schedule. They won four of five league titles before the most famous day in the club’s storied history in May 1991.
You can read a more in-depth account of that season in Tuesday’s match programme but manager Ljupko Petrovic’s young side made it all the way to the final of the European Cup for the first time and took on French superstars Marseille in Bari. After a goalless 120 minutes, Red Star scored all five of their penalties in the shootout to win Europe’s biggest prize.
Many believed that the club were on the verge of a dynasty but political unrest and conflict in their homeland meant that, not only was the national team – comprised mostly of that Red Star wonder team – banned from the 1992 European Championships but most of the members of that team ended up being scattered throughout some of Europe’s heavyweights. This broke up the most beloved and successful team in the history of the Red and Whites.
The subsequent breakup of Yugoslavia and the resulting conflict impacted the club terribly, forcing them to defend their title the following year playing games in Hungary and Bulgaria. The 90s were a bleak time for the cub and they did not return to the top table of European football until the 2000/01 season when they crashed out of the Champions League qualifiers.
The Red and Whites won the first inauguration of the Serbian SuperLiga in the 2006/07 season in the same year they were defeated in the Champions League qualifying rounds by the AC Milan side who would go on to win the competition. While they are regulars on the European scene, success on the continent has been few and far between. However, they have dominated on the domestic scene and have, incredibly, won nine SuperLiga titles in a row.
The club is currently managed by Dejan Stankovic with the club legend in his second spell at the club after his first stint from 2019-2022, he took over the reigns again in December 2025. As mentioned, their biggest rivals come from across the city, Partizan. The two play out ‘The Eternal Derby’ which is one of the most intense, passionate and atmospheric derbies in European and world football.
This will be the third time in their long and storied history that Red Star will play against opponents from Northern Ireland. Their first was against Linfield in the 1969/70 European Cup where they came out on top 12-2 on aggregate after a thumping 8-0 first leg win which, still to this day, is their biggest one-off win in European competition history. Their first opponents in their defence of their European Cup title in the 1991/92 season was actually Ronnie McFall’s Portadown where a pair of 4-0 wins in each leg saw the European champions ease through.
