Champions League analysis - Andy Brassell on Crvena zvezda

In his last preview of our Champions League group opponents, European football expert Andy Brassell takes a look at Serbian champions Crvena zvezda (Red Star Belgrade).

A writer for The Guardian and Independent, you can also listen to Andy on talkSPORT and the 'On the Continent' and 'Football Ramble' podcasts.

Andy's analysis - Crvena zvezda

Red Star have been able to strengthen their position from what they did last season. Getting back in the Champions League – last season was their first time back in the Champions League (group stages) since they won the competition in 1991 – makes a huge difference. They’ve held onto Milan Pavkov, who was really good last season, Mateo García as well. The captain is Marko Marin, the former Chelsea player. Then you’ve got Jose Canas, who wasn’t great at Swansea, but was really good for Real Betis in La Liga, rough and tough in the middle. They have quality. If you look at their record in qualifying, they’ve got through some really tough games against the likes of Copenhagen and Young Boys. The coach, Vladan Milojevic, is adored for that. His record in European qualifiers since he’s been in charge is amazing. It wasn’t just the fact they qualified last season, but the way they performed. They deserved to beat Liverpool in Belgrade in the group stage last season. You can talk about the atmosphere at the Marakana (Rajko Mitic Stadium), absolutely valid, but the big thing is the walk from the dressing room to the pitch, a long, winding corridor. It must be a two-minute walk into the stadium and that must play with your head as an opposing player! That will be something to negotiate as well. They are building something pretty special there, spirit, competitiveness, all underlined by getting to the group stage again this season. They haven’t taken a year off after what they did last season, they’ve battled tooth and nail to get here again.

Looking at the Champions League games so far, Bayern Munich, okay, 3-0 in the end and you might say ‘fair enough, that’s indicative of the fact Bayern are the better team’ but they scored late and at 1-0, Red Star were in the game. They defended for their lives and they weren’t battered or anything like that.  They were a little fortunate last time against Olympiacos, who went down to 10 men somewhat harshly with the sending off of Yassine Benzia (second yellow card, 57 minutes) when they were 1-0 up, but having said that, the way Red Star were able to take advantage of that was really impressive. Olympiacos have improved and looked in control up to that point, but Red Star seized their chance. Milojevic switched it up, took off Canas, a more defensive midfielder, threw on Njegos Petrovic and they then made the most of set-pieces, scoring two goals from corners, two great deliveries from Marin. Obviously, the difference between Red Star on the road and at home is huge, that’s clear. However, they looked as if they might be able to get a result at Bayern Munich. It’s a repetition of last season, when everyone wrote them off, but they made it difficult for three very good teams in their group in Liverpool, Napoli and PSG. You look at that and if you were to predict that they’d come out of that group with nil points, no-one would have said that was an unreasonable take. However, they ended up making it difficult for teams, beat Liverpool (2-0 at home, MD4, November) and you could argue the 0-0 draw against Napoli in Belgrade (MD1, September) stopped them going through. Once again, they can make it difficult for the teams in this group.