Crvena zvezda
Also written as Red Star Belgrade.
The club
FK Crvena zvezda were founded in Belgrade on 4 March 1945 and play at the Stadion Rajko Mitic, known universally as the Marakana, which holds 51,755. The club are called simply Zvezda, the Star, or the crveno-beli, the Red-Whites, and play in red and white vertical stripes. They are the most successful club in Serbian football and the only club from the former Eastern bloc to have won both the European Cup and the Intercontinental Cup.
Recent seasons
Zvezda have won nine consecutive Serbian SuperLiga titles up to and including 2025/26, and the last of them completed a sixth consecutive domestic double. The 2020/21 title was taken with 108 points, a world record for the number of points gained in a single league season. Full points totals for the other championship years were not established from the sources read here and are not stated.
Honours and landmarks
Thirty-seven national championships and thirty national cups, counting the Yugoslav and Serbian eras together. The European Cup of 1991 and the Intercontinental Cup of the same year remain the club's high-water mark and the only European Cup won by a club from the former Yugoslavia.
Notable scorelines
No club record win or record defeat was established from the sources read here, and neither is stated rather than guessed. The results that define the modern club are the European Cup of 1991 and the Intercontinental Cup that followed it. The European Cup final was played at the Stadio San Nicola in Bari on 29 May 1991, finished 0-0 after extra time, and Zvezda beat Marseille 5-3 on penalties. The Intercontinental Cup was won 3-0 against Colo-Colo at the National Stadium in Tokyo on 8 December 1991, Vladimir Jugovic scoring on 19 and 58 minutes and Darko Pancev on 72.
Two very recent scorelines are worth carrying. Zvezda beat Larne of Northern Ireland 4-0 away on 21 July 2026 and 5-0 at home on 29 July 2026, a 9-0 aggregate. Twelve days later they lost 0-2 at home to Hapoel Beer Sheva and were out of the Champions League.
European record
The 1991 European Cup, won on penalties against Marseille in Bari on 29 May 1991, and the Intercontinental Cup taken 3-0 from Colo-Colo in Tokyo on 8 December 1991, are the club's standing claim on the competition. In the modern era Zvezda have been regular Champions League qualifiers and league-phase participants, entering through the champions path as Serbian champions.
In 2026/27 they entered at the second qualifying round of the Champions League and dispatched Larne 9-0 over two legs, 4-0 in Northern Ireland on 21 July 2026 and 5-0 at the Marakana on 29 July. The third qualifying round paired them with Hapoel Beer Sheva of Israel. The first leg was played on 4 August 2026 in Szombathely, Hungary, because Israeli clubs are playing home matches on neutral ground, and Hapoel won it 1-0. The return at the Marakana on 11 August 2026, refereed by Glenn Nyberg of Sweden, was worse: Hapoel's Igor Zlatanovic scored on 61 minutes and Ist added a second on 79 to win 2-0 and take the tie 3-0. Serbian reporting has head coach Dejan Stankovic sent off on 57 minutes for protesting, two minutes before the opening goal, and not attending the post-match press conference, and a Hapoel red card for Abu Fani in the 93rd minute; neither dismissal nor the attendance figure was confirmed against a second source read here.
Quotes
The following were given before the season opened, ahead of the SuperLiga match with Macva Sabac. No verbatim post-match quotes from the Hapoel elimination were confirmed from the sources read here; Serbian reporting states that Stankovic did not speak to the press after that match.
- "Pripreme su prosle onako kako smo zamislili. Nema vise reci 'spremni smo ili nismo spremni', mi moramo da budemo spremni." - Dejan Stankovic, head coach, to B92 Sport, 16 July 2026. https://www.b92.net/sport/fudbal/srpski-fudbal/250874/dejan-stankovic-izjava-pred-pocetak-sls-202627/vest
- "Hvala Bogu svi su zdravi, i te sitne povrede koje smo imali smo prevazisli." - Dejan Stankovic, head coach, to B92 Sport, 16 July 2026. https://www.b92.net/sport/fudbal/srpski-fudbal/250874/dejan-stankovic-izjava-pred-pocetak-sls-202627/vest
- "Otvaramo ovo prvenstvo kod nas, zelimo da se predstavimo dobro, da budemo jaki, konkretni, disciplinovani i koncentrisani pre svega." - Dejan Stankovic, head coach, to B92 Sport, 16 July 2026. https://www.b92.net/sport/fudbal/srpski-fudbal/250874/dejan-stankovic-izjava-pred-pocetak-sls-202627/vest
- "Prvenstvo je skraceno, tako da moramo biti koncentrisani jer je manji broj bodova u opticaju, pa svaki bod i svaka pobeda mnogo znace." - Dejan Stankovic, head coach, to B92 Sport, 16 July 2026. https://www.b92.net/sport/fudbal/srpski-fudbal/250874/dejan-stankovic-izjava-pred-pocetak-sls-202627/vest
Right now (2026/27)
Dejan Stankovic is head coach. The SuperLiga season opened on 17 July 2026 at the Marakana against Macva Sabac, and the championship has been shortened this season, a point Stankovic made publicly before it began. Summer spending was reported at around twelve million euros: Strahinja Erakovic was bought outright from Zenit after a winter loan, at a fee reported as 3.5 million euros for half of his contract, and Dzej Enem was bought from OFK Beograd for a reported two million. Those figures come from Serbian football media rather than club statements and are reported rather than confirmed.
The European tie they are in right now is the Europa League play-off round against Viktoria Plzen. Zvezda arrive there having just been knocked out of the Champions League: beaten 1-0 by Hapoel Beer Sheva in Szombathely on 4 August 2026 and 2-0 at home on 11 August 2026, out 3-0 on aggregate, with Stankovic sent off in the second leg. The play-off first leg is in Belgrade on 20 August 2026 and the return is at the Doosan Arena in Plzen on 27 August 2026. A defeat there would leave Zvezda in the Conference League league phase rather than the Europa League.
Sources
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Star_Belgrade https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1991_European_Cup_final https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1991_Intercontinental_Cup https://www.uefa.com/uefachampionsleague/match/2048714--larne-vs-crvena-zvezda/ https://www.uefa.com/uefachampionsleague/match/2048728--crvena-zvezda-vs-larne/ https://sportklub.n1info.rs/fudbal/champions-league/crvena-zvezda-hapoel-ber-seva-livestream-uzivo-kvalifikacije-liga-sampiona-revans/ https://www.mozzartsport.com/fudbal/vesti/uzivo-crvena-zvezda-hapoel-ber-seva-00/551163 https://www.b92.net/sport/fudbal/srpski-fudbal/250874/dejan-stankovic-izjava-pred-pocetak-sls-202627/vest https://www.fansport.rs/svi-transferi-fk-crvene-zvezde-2026-liga-sampiona/ https://www.ceskenoviny.cz/zpravy/souperem-fotbalistu-plzne-ve-4-predkole-evropske-ligy-bude-cz-belehrad/2860995 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026%E2%80%9327_UEFA_Europa_League_qualifying
Researched and written for not4quarters. Where a fact could not be established from the sources read, this page says so rather than guessing.