“The flame flickered all too briefly. It was a tale of glory and of heartbreak. As war engulfed their homeland, Red Star Belgrade’s football lit up Europe. A team of Croats, Serbs, Montenegrins, Macedonians and Bosnians shocked the whole continent. But the unity of the team was soon a memory, amid the brutality and hatred that went on to destroy Yugoslavia.”
In a few days, Real Madrid and Atletico Madrid and going to go head to head in Milan to decide the new European Champion. Real Madrid have been the most successful side in the tournament’s history having won the famous trophy 10 times. But whenever one talks about the European Cup, people mention the great Real Madrid sides of the 50s and 60s or the Total Football playing Ajax side or the treble-winning Manchester United team. However, there is no mention of the Yugoslav giant killers Red Star Belgrade who won the competition in 1991.
In 1990, Red Star Belgrade won their 17th Yugoslav League title, 11 points ahead of second placed Dinamo Zagreb with Darko Pancev scoring 25 goals, becoming the league’s top scorer. Thus, Red Star qualified for the next season’s European Cup. But football wasn’t the only concern in the Balkans. Throughout the 1980s, the ties that had kept Yugoslavia together were getting weaker by the minute.
Centuries of tensions had begun to erupt with the utmost dread. On May 13th, 1990, Red Star’s ultras clashed with Dinamo’s fans in Zagreb’s Maksimir Stadium. In a full scaled riot about 70 fans were injured. This clash is seen by many as the first real kind of war between Croatia and Serbia. As Red Star were assembling the perfect team for their European campaign, their country was falling apart.
The road to the final
Red Star Belgrade faced Swiss Champions Grasshoppers Zurich, managed by the great Ottmar Hitzfeld in the first round of the 1990-91 European Cup. After a 1-1 draw in Belgrade, Red Star won 4-1 in the second leg in Zurich thanks to a brace by Robert Prosinecki. This win kick-started what would be a historic season for Red Star.
In the second round, Red Star were drawn against Graeme Souness' Glasgow Rangers. Again like in the first round, Prosinecki was the star of the tie as Rangers were defeated 3-0 at the Marakana Stadium in front of 75,000 loud fans. The second leg in Glasgow was tied at 1-1. Graeme Souness said after the match that Rangers were simply beaten by the technique and skill of the Red Star players.
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This sent Red Star through to the quarter-finals, where they would face East German champions Dynamo Dresden. Red Star once again showed their supremacy and defeated the East German side 6-0 on aggregate, winning 3-0 in both home and away legs. When a team reaches the semifinals of a European Cup, there is every possibility that they would face a giant of the European game who have won the European Cup multiple times and that’s what happened to Red Star who were drawn against Bayern Munich.
Bayern Munich at that time were undefeated in 47 European home games, but in the 48th, Red Star beat them 2-1 with Panchev and Prosinecki again scoring through counter-attacks after playing a high pressing game. In the second leg in Belgrade, Bayern were 2-1 ahead. The tie seemed to head into extra time but when Mihajlovic crossed the ball for Darko Pancev, Klaus Augenthaler tried to clear but a missed kick from him looped the ball into the back of the net, giving Red Star a 4-3 win on aggregate.
The fateful final
Red Star Belgrade were through to their first European Cup Final where they would face French side Marseille in Bari's Stadio San Nicola. Marseille were the clear favourites to win by possessing players such as Abedi Pele, Manuel Amoros, Chris Waddle and Jean Tigana. It was a difficult task for a Red Star team that Sinisa Mihajlovic says were “a squad full of 21, 22 and 23-year-old kids”.
Ljupko Petrovic, then manager of Red Star made a brave and bold decision to kill the game and try to win it penalties. As all the games in the Yugoslav First League ending in draws went to penalties in order to decide the winner, all of the Red Star players were well accustomed to taking penalties and therefore cope with the pressure far better than their opponents.
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The tactics paid off. After 120 minutes of “forgettable” and boring football, the match would be decided on penalties. Red Star won 5-3 on penalties with Prosinecki, Binic, Belodedici, Mihajlovic, and Pancev all scoring from 12 yards, making Red Star Belgrade European Champions for the first time in their history.
It was an unbelievable achievement for an Eastern European side, given all the political tensions and turmoils surrounding the country at that time. Eventually, with the whole nation, the team too fell apart. Players such as Savicevic, Panchev, Prosinecki and Mihajlovic left to play football in Italy and Spain. Yugoslavia were also thrown out of Euro 1992 due to violence in their country, replaced by eventual winners Denmark.
Even during the times when Yugoslavia was facing social, political and racial issues, the Red Star team, boasting players from different regions of Yugoslavia, stayed united, worked as a single unit and won the biggest prize in European Club Football. Even before Leicester City’s epic title winning 2015-16 season, Red Star Belgrade proved that one should never right off the underdogs.
Red Star Belgrade’s 1991 European Cup triumph was, without a doubt the greatest achievement coming out from the Balkans.
