Preview : Serbia SuperLiga 2020/21

July 31, 2020

With three matches being played on Friday evening,  the Serbia SuperLiga becomes the first major league to resume after the COVID-19 suspension, finish the season, take a break and then start the next season.

History

The Yugoslav First League was created in 1946 and featured the top clubs from all of the Yugoslav republics. With the break-up of Yugoslavia and the departure of sides from Croatia, Slovenia, Bosnia and Macedonia, from 1992 only sides from Serbia and Montenegro remained in the Yugoslav First League. The residual league kept the Yugoslav First League name bit following Montenegro’s independence in 2006, the league only has Serbian clubs and was rebranded the SuperLiga.

In the history of the Yugoslav First League/SuperLiga only 4 Serbian sides have ever won the title, the most successful being Crvena Zvezda, or Red Star Belgrade as they are more commonly known, with 31 all-time titles ( 19 prior to the break-up ) They also won the European Cup in 1991 beating Marseille on penalties.

Partizan are the next successful with 27 all-time titles ( 11 prior to the break-up ), and the only other Serbian sides to win Championships were Vojvodina ( twice - the last in 1989, and are the only non Belgrade Serbian side to win the title ) and the notorious, now defunct, Obilic, under the patronage of career criminal/thug/war hero ( delete as appropriate ) Arkan, who allegedly bullied, threatened and coerced their way to win the league in 1998.

The Serbian SuperLiga is currently ranked 19^th by UEFA, below Greece and Switzerland but above Croatia, Sweden and Norway. For sponsorship reasons the league is also referred to as the Linglong Tyre SuperLiga.

The National Side

The national side are currently 29th in the FIFA world rankings, making them 18^th best in Europe.

Serbia finished third in their Euro 2020 qualification group, behind Ukraine and Portugal. They now face a one-off match against Norway in Oslo in October, with the winner playing the winner of Scotland and Israel for a place in the Euro 2020 finals. The last time Serbia qualified for the Euros was in 2000, when they played under the name FR Yugoslavia, losing 1-6 to the Netherlands in Rotterdam in the quarter-final.

Serbia qualified for the 2018 World Cup Finals, but failed to get out of their group, beating Costa Rica but losing to Brazil and Switzerland.

The captain of the national side is Roma and ex-Manchester City full-back Alexsandr Kolarov. Other prominent members of the current squad include Manchester United centre back Matija Matic, Fulham forward Alexsandr Mitrovic, Crystal Palace midfielder Luka Milivojevic, Ajax’s outstanding Dusan Tadic, and Real Madrid forward Luka Jovic. Seven others play in Italy’s Serie A, three in Germany’s Bundesliga and three in Spain’s La Liga. Only 6 currently play in Serbia ( 5 for Red Star, 1 for Partizan ) whilst the rest play in France, Austria, Turkey, Russia, Poland and Kazakhstan.

League Structure

Twenty teams will compete in the SuperLiga in the 2020/21 season, playing each other twice. At the end of the season, the Champions enter the first qualifying round of the UEFA Champions League while the runner-up and the third place, together with the winner of the Serbian Cup will enter the UEFA Conference League second qualifying round.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, no sides were relegated during the 2019/20 season but 4 sides were promoted from the Serbian First League ( Prva Liga ) temporarily increasing the league from 16 to 20 sides. As a result, 6 sides will be relegated in 2020/21 to return the league to 16 sides.

The Prva Liga normally consists of 16 clubs, but 18 sides will compete in 2020/21, with the first round of league matching scheduled for August 15^th.

Last Season

The 2019/20 season started on July 19^th but was suspended on March 15^th due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The reason resumed on May 29^th with a shortened season, and the cancellation of the championship and relegation rounds, and no relegation.

Defending champions Red Star successfully defended their title, finishing 14 points ahead of Partizan, who improved from their third place finish the season before. Vojvodina finished two further points behind in third place, an improvement from 7^th the year before and they won the Serbian Cup, beating Partizan on penalties.

Newly promoted TSC Backa Topola finished 4^th and with Vladimir Siladi and Nenad Lukic had the league’s joint top scorers, both with 16 goals, to qualify for Europe for the first time ever. Radnicki Nis were 5^th, having been runners-up in 2018/19 and Cukaricki came 6^th, down from 4^th the year before.

In Europe, Red Star won 4 qualifying matches ( FK Suduva, HJK Helsinki, FC Copenhagen and Young Boys Berne ) to reach the group stages, to play Bayern Munich, Tottenham and Olympiakos. Partizan won three rounds ( Connah’s Quay Nomads, Yeni Malatyaspor and Molde ) to reach the Europa League group stages against Manchester United, AZ Alkmaar and Astana.

Radnicki were eliminated by Estonia’s Flora Tallinn in their only tie and Cukaricki beat Armenian side Banants before losing to Molde )

Attendances

Serbia was one of the first countries in Europe to allow spectators to attend matches after the resumption following the COVID-19 suspension, initially allowing up 1,000 spectators after a week of matches behind closed doors. By the end of the season this restriction had been lifted, and over 18,000 fans were in attendance to see Red Star crowned champions on the last day of the season.

Red Star were the best supported team, with an average crowd of 10,449. Partizan were the next best with an average of 4,623 and the only other side with an average over 2,000 was Vojvodina with 2,643. Both Red Star and Partizan were well supported away from home, and their supporters have a tendency to set off flares and fireworks !

Seven sides had an average of less than 1,000, with Rad the lowest on 492. The highest attendance of the season was 38,271 for Red Star vs Partizan, with 22,000 watching the return fixture.

However, due to a recent surge in COVID-19 cases all matches in the first week of the new season are to be played behind closed doors.

How To Watch

The official YouTube channel Superliga Serbia is normally quick to upload highlights of all league matches. Highlights of league and cup matches can also be found on the Arena Sport TV YouTube Channel as well as on the league’s website. https://www.superliga.rs/

Live streaming of matches was available on Bet365 to account holders last season but this season's matches are not yet showing.

Preview Of The Season

History and recent form suggests there are realistically only two likely contenders to win the 2020/21 title, Red Star or Partizan.

Red Star will start as hot favourites as they were comfortable winners last season, and look at present to have strengthened their squad, although of course there is still time for plenty of changes with the transfer window potentially remaining open until the start of October.

Their home ground is now called the Rajko Mitic Stadium, named after a former player, but is often referred to as the Marakana as at one-time it had a capacity of 110,000 with comparisons made to the famous stadium in Rio de Janeiro. All seating requirements have now reduced the capacity to 53,000, and whilst in recent times has rarely come close to being full for league games, all of their Champions League Group Stage matches, as well as their last two CL qualifiers attracted over 40,000 spectators. Red Star are the best supported club in the country, and their fans create a hostile atmosphere, and in 15 league home matches only Partizan avoided defeat ( with a 0-0 draw ). Only two league matches were lost all season, at Partizan ( 0-2 ) and TSC Backa Topola ( 1-2 after the league had already been won ). As the name suggests, the club badge is a Red Star and the team play in red and white stripes.

On the eve of the start of the season, Red Star have so far signed two new players. One is controversial 29 year old winger Alexsandar Katai, who has 9 caps for Serbia, and returns for a second spell at the club after stints at Alaves, Chicago Fire and LA Galaxy. He was released by LA Galaxy early in July after unacceptable tweets made by his wife after the George Floyd protests across the USA. He scored 23 goals in 57 games in his first stay at Red Star.

The other signing is 26 year old Srban Sprodonovic, an Austrian U21 international with a Serbian heritage, He signed from Polish club Pogon Szeczin for a fee reportedly of 250K Euros, and has previously played for Panionios and Admira Wacker. He has scored in Red Star’s last two pre-season friendlies.

The announced departures have been reserve goal-keeper Zoran Popovic to Levski Sofia and fringe midfielder Milan Jevtovic to AGF of Aarhus in Denmark. Both left on free transfers having made 4 and 6 league appearances respectively in 2019/20.

Red Star’s leading goal scorer in 2019/20 with 13 goals in 21 league appearances was El Fardou Mohammad Ben who is from the Comoros Islands. Known simply as Ben, he was previously with Olympiakos and was the top scorer at Panionios ( see the Blog report on Panionios vs Iraklis ! ). He was also the top scorer for Red Star in 2018/19 with 17 goals from 24 matches. Milan Pavkov scored 7 times from 20 appearances ( 12 from 27 in 2018/19 plus famously twice in the 2-0 CL win over Liverpool ) whilst Portuguese striker Tomane ( ex Vitoria Guimares and Tondela ) scored 5 times from 18 appearances. Ghanian International Richmond Boakye ( ex Juventus, Sassuolo and Atalanta ) only scored one league goal, but netted 4 times in the Champions League having scored 15 times in 13 games the season before. The other major sources of goals was Alexsa Vukanovic who recorded 6 from 20 appearances in 2019/20

First choice goal-keeper is Canadian International Milan Bojan, and in front of him are usually Australian International Milos Degenek and Serbian internationals Nemanja Milunovic, Milan Rodic and Marko Gorbeljic although Radovan Pankov and Milan Gajic also appeared in more than half of the matches last season.

The midfield is likely to feature Argentine Mateo Garcia, alongside Veljko Nikolic and Branko Jovicic although ex Young Boys Ivorian Sekou Sanogo has featured in pre-season after hardly appearing since signing in January.

Partizan play at the Partizan stadium in Belgrade which has a capacity of 32,710 and their colours are black and white stripes. 

They had a good record against Red Star last season, taking 4 points in the league and winning the cup semi-final 1-0. However, consistency was a problem, losing 6 matches, two at home to modest opposition ( Vozdovac 1-2 & Napredak Krusevac 2-3 ) and at Cukaricki ( 1-2 ), Mldost Lucani ( 0-1 ), Spartak Subotica ( 2-3 ) & Vojvodina ( 0-1 ) the later being their last two away matches of the season.

The Partizan squad features some familiar names. Lazar Markovic ( ex Liverpool and Fulham ), Nigerian Umar Sadiq ( ex-Roma ) and Japanese Takuma Asano ( ex Arsenal ) are the potential forward line, and Sadiq contributed 12 goals last season.

Guinean Seydouba Soumah provided 10 goals from midfield, alongside Israeli veteran  Bibras Nathko, 

whilst the captain is 37 year old keeper Vladmir Stojkovic, who had short spells with Nottingham Forest and Wigan as well as picking up 84 caps. 29 year old defender Nemanja Miletic is part of the current Serbia national squad and the coach is ex Aston Villa striker Savo Milosevic ( or miss-a-lot as he was dubbed ! ).

In the transfer market Partizan have signed two relatively unknown quantities, Cameroonian Macky Bagnak from Olimpia Ljubljana and Dusan Lalatovic from Dunaska Streda to replace teenage defender Strahinja Pavlovic who has returned to Monaco after being loaned back to Partizan after being signed by the French club.

The battle for the European places is likely to involve the usual suspects of Vojvodina, Radnicki & Cukaricki whilst TSC Backa Topola will be hoping to repeat their surprise of last season if they can hang onto marksmen Vladimir Siladi and Nenad Lukic. Spartak Subotica will be hoping to do better after a sustained period of under achievement.

Vojvodina are from Novi Sad, Serbia’s second city and their name comes from the autonomous province. The Karadorde stadium holds just under 15,000 spectators and the club play in red and white halves, similar to Slavia Prague, who had close ties to Vojvodina during the initial development of the club.

Vojvodina’s third place finished owed a lot to their home form, where they only lost two matches, and they showed their potential in the last two games of the season, both against Partizan. The home league match was won 1-0, and they won an eventful Cup-Final. Leading 2-0 with 10 minutes to play, Partizan came back to equalise in the 96^th minute to force extra-time. Emotions ran high in the penalty shoot-out, with Partizan players and the bench being incensed by the gestures made to the Partizan supporters by Vojvodina players after their successful penalties, and a mass brawl ensued in the middle of the shoot-out ! After order was restored, and a red card issued to a Partizan substitute, Vojvodina held their nerve to win. In the semi-final, Vojvodina had won 1-0 at Cukaricki thanks to a header from midfielder Nemanja Covic.

Vojvodina’s coach Nenad Lalatovic has a reputation for not liking foreign players and the only non Serbs in the current squad come from other Balkan countries ( Bosnia, Montenegro, Croatia and Romania ) with whom there is presumably no language barriers. Midfielder Peter Bojic is perhaps their most influential player and one interesting player in the squad is Lazar Stojsavljevic, who played briefly at Woking, Millwall and Newport County before returning to Serbia.

Radnicki are from Nis, the third largest city in Serbia. The Cair stadium holds just over 18,000 and was used to host the Vojvodina vs Partizan Cup final. Radnicki play in all red.

Talented but niggly young winger Nikola Cumic scored 9 goals but he had been sold to Olympiakos for a reported 500K Euros and loaned back to the club for the rest of the season. He is expected to be in Greece for the new season. Stefan Mihajlovic was top scorer with 15 goals. Apart from Bosnian full-back Bojan Letic, the whole squad are Serbian, although midfielder Stefan Mitrovic is dual qualified for Canada.

Cukaricki are a side from Belgrade and play in all white. Their ground holds just over 4,000 spectators and has stands on either side of the pitch but there is nothing behind the goals.

A regular in the Cukaricki line up was teenager Slobodan Tedic, who was signed mid-season by Manchester City for a reported 3M euros but loaned back for the rest of the 2019/20 season where he scored 9 times including cup matches. Midfielder Luka Stojanovic also scored 9 times and their squad also includes Nigerian Eze Okeuhie, who was signed from Vojvodina in the winter break, and forward Ibrahima N’Diaye who is from Senegal.

TSC Backa Topola were a revelation in their first season in SuperLiga and were easily the highest scorers after Red Star and Partizan. As well as Siladi and Lukic being the division’s joint top scorers, Duro Zec also contributed 9 goals from midfield. Backa Topola is a small town with a population of around 70,000 and is situated close to the border with Hungary. Nearly 60% of the town are ethnic Hungarians. With a new stadium under construction, home matches are being played at the tiny ground in nearby Senta, which holds just 3,000. As a prelude to the new season, Backa Topola have played three warm-up friendlies against Hungarian opposition, and lost all of them, so that doesn’t bode well for the new season !

Spartak are from the city of Subotica, which is the fifth largest in Serbia and is also on the Hungarian border. They were frequent participants in the Yugoslav league but never set the league alight, a tradition they have continued since the formation of the Serbia Superliga. The Subotica City stadium has a capacity of 13,000 and whilst Spartak’s colours are all light blue they were playing in all black at the end of the season. Ex Partizan Montenegrin Nemanja Nikolic finished as their top scorer with 9 goals

With 6 sides going down, the excitement is more likely to revolve around the relegation battle, with potential 6 pointers already being played in August ! Rad and Macva Sabac finished well adrift at the bottom of the 2091/20 table, gathering only 15 and 13 points respectively, so are likely to struggle again. Third bottom Indija finished with 25 points. Javor Ivanjica were fourth bottom thanks to 16 goals from Nikola Petrovic, but he has joined FC Chambery, a French second division side, and will undoubtedly be missed. Proleter Novi Sad and Radnik Surdulica also struggled last season and are also likely to be in the relegation mix.

The four promoted sides are Zlatibor, Backa ( not the same Backa as Backa Topola !), Metalac and Novi Pazar and all largely an unknown quantity but will have a primary aim of finishing outside of the bottom six.

Vozvodac, Mladost Lucani and Napredak Krusevac are likely to be mid-table mediocrity.

One point of interest is the use of Cyrillic and Roman script in Serbia. The Serbian language uses both, with Cyrillic being used in formal circumstances, and Latin in more common usage. Some clubs such as Red Star, Partizan and Radnicki have players’ names on the back of their shirts in Cyrillic whilst others eg Vojvodina, Cukaricki and Spartak have Roman script. The majority of the adverts on the perimeter hoarding are in Roman although the writing on the scoreboard will usually be the same as the writing on the home club’s shirts !