Name changed but Star still burning

THE name was unrecognisable to many Scottish viewers when UEFA general secretary David Taylor unfolded the piece of paper from the plastic ball in Nyon at the Champions League draw.

Yet the identity of the Fudbalski Klub Crvena Zvezda will always resonate as one of the most colourful and magical in the history of European club football. In France, they are known as Etoile Rouge. Germans think of them as Roter Stern, in Italy they are Stella Rossa.

But for most of us, they have always been and remain Red Star Belgrade. Even in Montenegro last week, as Serbian journalists milled around the post-match media area following Rangers victory over Zeta which set up a Champions League third qualifying round tie against the team now officially listed in their own language as Crvena Zvezda, they were universally referred to as Red Star.

They have been a staple of European club competition almost since its inception, reaching the semi-finals of the European Cup at their first attempt in 1957. Fifty years later, and with their 1991 triumph in the elite tournament as the highlight of their trophy-laden history, they will play their 234th match in Europe, against Rangers at Ibrox tonight.

Red Star's own history stretches only marginally further back in time than the European Cup itself. As Yugoslavia emerged as a powerhouse of the Communist eastern bloc of nations in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War, Red Star Belgrade were founded in 1945 by a combination of politically-minded students and the police force.

Their rivalry with Partizan Belgrade, formed by the Yugoslav Army at the same time, was instant and intense but it was on the continental stage that Red Star would discover their greatest sense of fulfilment.

Scottish football was provided with an early example of the quality of Red Star when Hibs were crushed 5-0 on aggregate in the second round of the Fairs Cup in 1961-62. While they would later meet their Caledonian match in losing to both Rangers (1964-65) and Celtic (1968-69) in the European Cup, Red Star quickly established themselves as one of Europe's most respected clubs.

They were also the major provider of players for a succession of excellent Yugoslavian international teams. At the 1974 World Cup finals they provided eight of the players who ultimately shattered the dreams of Willie Ormond and his squad in West Germany. The name of Stanislav Karasi will ring a bell in the minds of older members of the Tartan Army as the Red Star striker whose goal denied the Scots in their final group match in Frankfurt.

While Karasi joined a procession of Red Star players whose technical brilliance and apparently inherent game awareness earned them lucrative moves to western European clubs, the Belgrade outfit continued to reinvent themselves as a major European power. They reached the UEFA Cup final in 1979, losing to Borussia Moenchengladbach, but it was in the late 1980s and early 1990s that they would build the team which would give them the ultimate prize.

If their European Cup triumph of 1991 registered as a shock with many, it came as no surprise to Graeme Souness and Walter Smith who at the start of that campaign had seen their Rangers side torn apart by Ljupko Petrovic's brilliant outfit.

The Scottish champions boasted players of considerable quality themselves at the time, including Chris Woods, Richard Gough, Mark Walters and Ally McCoist. They were simply no match, however, for a devastating and intuitive Red Star side anchored in defence by Miodrag Belodedic, orchestrated in midfield by Robert Prosinecki and Dejan Savicevic while Darko Pancev provided deadliness in attack.

Rangers were crushed 3-0 in the first leg in Belgrade with a McCoist goal salvaging some pride in the Ibrox return after a stunning Pancev strike had put the tie beyond doubt. Red Star would go on to lift the trophy and if their penalty shoot-out win over Marseille in the final was ultimately a disappointment, their performances earlier in the tournament, including the semi-final defeat of Bayern Munich, confirmed them as worthy champions.

While the break-up of Yugoslavia has inevitably diminished the influence of teams from its component parts, Red Star remain a team to be respected, if perhaps no longer feared. Last season's league and cup double, taking their tally of domestic title and cup wins to 25 and 22 respectively, added a fresh chapter to a glorious story.

The sacking last week of Bosko Djurovski as coach, replaced by Milorad Kosanovic, was an indication of current turmoil and Saturday's 0-0 draw at home to newly-promoted Cukaricki in their Serbian League opener did little to increase optimism among their followers.

TEN FACTS ON RED STAR

1 Red Star is known in Serbia as Crvena Zvezda or affectionately as Crveno-Beli.

2 Red Star was officially founded in 1945 as the Belgrade University team and championed by the communist government of the time as the "peoples team".

3 Red Star have won the Serbian league 25 times, most recently in the 2006/2007 season.

4 Red Star are the only Serbian team to have won a UEFA competition, beating Marseille in the 1991 European Cup final.

5 Red Star is the club most closely associated with the reign of Slobodan Milosevic. During his time in power football fans were often recruited into armed gangs, however Red Star fans became active in attempts to eradicate the regime, carrying out protests and marches.

6 Red Star's stadium is infamous for it's electric atmosphere and fans nicknamed the ground the Marakana. It's record attendance occurred in 1973 when crowds reached 110,000, however the stadium's capacity is now a more manageable 54,000 .

7 Red Star fans are known as Delije - roughly translating as "the courageous, brave young men".

8 Red Star's bitter rivals Partizan are also found in Belgrade. Matches between the pair are known as "the eternal derby".

9 Red Star foster and attract home-grown talent. Today 20 players from the squad of 35 are Serbian.

10 The last time Red Star met Rangers was in 1990, with the Serbian team managing a 1-1 draw at Ibrox and a 3-0 victory at the Marakana.