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thefootballlife · 5 years

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Serbian Superliga Preview 19/20

The Linglong Serbian Superliga (sponsored by a Chinese tyre company building a plant in the north of Serbia) is going to be won by Crvena Zvezda. There’ll probably be a couple of match-fixing allegations, a bunch of players not getting paid, some top young talent, a walk-off after a contentious decision and the sort of scandal more befitting of a trashy soap opera than what is supposed to be a professional football league. And that’s, ultimately, why we love it – it’s unpredictable and full of talking points, even if a great many of those talking points aren’t exactly positive.

Even before the league starts, that sort of thing has been going on. Take Simo Krunic, Radnicki Nis’ new manager. At the end of last season, his Cukaricki side ended his new employers’ title ambitions in a game where he attempted to fight the Radnicki Nis coaching staff, ending with police having to separate the two coaching teams and then gave a press conference about how much he was Zvezda supremo Zvezdan Terzic’s best friend. Don’t even mention the stuff around the national manager’s job. This sort of thing is just an accepted part of daily life in Serbian football.

But out of the madness must come a functioning football season and, to give it it’s due, Serbian football has delivered of late. While many will look on Zvezda’s CL appearance last season as evidence, it was merely a follow up to Europa League goodness from both they and from Partizan the season prior. The players being produced are moving for closer to their value than before, players such as Dejan Joveljic or Filip Stuparevic, when they go abroad and last season’s title race went almost all the way with the relegation race being even more exciting, not to mention an eventful relegation playoff.

So when looking ahead to this season, there seems plenty to be encouraged by when it comes to what entertainment the season will provide. Ultimately, however, only one team is going to win it.

Crvena Zvezda are that rare thing in Serbia – a relatively well-run club. They are the dominant side in Serbia not because of shadiness but because they have invested their money better, kept their over-performing manager and brought in some really very good players. Of the players they’ve lost over the summer, only Goran Causic is of great detriment – Joveljic is the major sale monetarily and for the future, but in a position the club had well covered and, while he is an excellent player who will serve Eintracht well, he moved before he truly became an indispensable member of the team. Tomane is a promising replacement as back up striker as, ultimately, in Milan Pavkov and Aleksa Vukanovic, Zvezda have two domestic strikers who are more than capable of providing the firepower to take them to the title even without the input of more-lauded players such as El Fardou Ben or Richmond Boakye. Much of that is that sitting behind that forward line is the rejuvenated Marko Marin.

Marin has had a stuttering career, mainly due to an ill-fated move to Chelsea, but he swaggers around the Superliga a class apart from any other player in the league. His team are, likewise, a class apart from any other side in the league. They went most of last season unbeaten and, while the team is no better now than then, one could expect them to be on a similar roll this season. They simply have too much talent on the pitch and in the dugout to not win the league convincingly.

Neutrals will undoubtedly think “but what about Partizan?” Certainly, towards the end of last season under Savo Milosevic, there was something approaching a revival to what Partizan should be doing but it’s hard to avoid the issues that the club has around money and a sign of that was the cheap as chips sale of Svetozar Markovic to Olympiacos - recently he was one of the most highly rated under 20 centre backs in football, now he’s away to Greece for under £1.5m without his talent or potential having changed. His replacement, Igor Vucanic, impressed in Montenegrin football but Montenegrin football is a terrible standard and his move to Serbia, particularly to Partizan, is a sign of where Partizan’s ambitions (or lack of) are. Rajko Brezancic is a decent signing but I’m fairly sure that I’ll have a fair portion of Scottish readers laughing merely by mentioning the name of Partizan’s loan signing: Umar Sadiq, who was uniquely terrible in Scotland. Likely their most promising piece of business was in bringing in Aleksandar Lutovac from Rad - Lutovac was overdue a move to a bigger club and if he hits the ground running at Partizan, he should have a big impact.

But being entirely honest, this Partizan side doesn’t have what it takes to hang with Zvezda. Stojkovic is an unreliable goalkeeper, there’s a reliance on throwing kids into the side with the appropriate varying levels of success (Strahinja Pavlovic is the main man at the minute, but last season, Partizan were putting out a CB partnership with a combined age of 36) and we’ll see that from the likes of Derlek, Pavlovic (x2 - Strahinja and Lazar) and Stevanovic all so they can get sold to maintain being able to pay the rest of the side. As and when Partizan get themselves on a sound footing with some stability, then they will be able to look to build towards a title challenge. Those conditions are not currently at the club.

For a start, Partizan weren’t even second last season - that was Radnicki Nis. As mentioned earlier, there’s been a change of manager at the club with Simo Krunic coming in. With that has come plenty of player turnover - five first-team regulars have gone over the summer (when including loans) and they will be extremely reliant on the goals of Nermin Haksic to fire them to a decent place in the league. The replacements that have come in aren’t exciting and the measure of how good they are was seen in the embarrassing 2-0 first leg defeat to Flora Tallinn in the Europa League - a team they’d have been expected to beat relatively comfortably.

So, if the Nisave aren’t up to putting together a season to break up the big two, who is? Well, the mastermind of Radnicki Nis’ great season last year, Nenad Lalatovic, is now Vojvodina manager. Vojvodina are traditionally Serbia’s third club but have endured a torrid few seasons. Lalatovic represents the best hope of turning the club around and he’s been given free rein to reshape the squad with nine players coming into the club this summer. Nikola Drincic, brought directly with him from Radnicki Nis is still a top central midfielder at this level as is Petar Bojic. Nemanja Covic had a good season last year with Proleter and was well worth the move.

Jovan Kokir may also turn out to be a stroke of genius - he did well enough on loan last season in the Prva Liga and if Lalatovic goes all-in on him, it may well pay off handsomely. Better players have come in than gone out and while any hope of a challenge to Zvezda seems fanciful, if Vojvodina can get themselves into the top four and into European competition for next season, the season will have been a success.

There are two other clubs who will have aspirations similar to Vojvodina’s. The first of those is last year’s fourth-placed Cukaricki who lost manager Simo Krunic but brought in Aleksandar Veselinovic. Veselinovic messed up at Vojvodina but on his time at Spartak, there’s little reason to think he’ll do badly. Last season’s side has been kept together with Veljko Birmancevic making his move permanent. Ognjen Mudrinski is the main loss from the side but Mink Peeters is nothing if not an intriguing replacement and there appears to be a more prominent role for homegrown Slobodan Tedic, who scored a Europa League double against Banants. It’s fair to say using the limited Europa League form, Cukaricki seem better prepared for this season than Radnicki Nis.

The other club worth mentioning when it comes to European qualification are newly promoted TSC Backa Topola (some call them TSC, some Backa Topola - it’s confusing. Hopefully, we’ll have agreed naming by the end of the season). They won the Prva Liga by five points in what was a competitive race against Javor (who had been relegated the previous season) and are backed, similarly to some clubs in other nations, by Hungarian money that is part of Orban’s soft power imperialism in Hungarian ethnic regions. To be fair to them, they do not really flaunt their cash or the ethnic angle that much but have made some sensible acquisitions - Goran Antonic was a good Superliga player when leaving to go abroad and comes back a better player, Janko Tumbasevic is a solid Superliga midfielder who had a great season at Mladost last season. They add to a side that was extremely potent last season and whose policy was to produce the best possible Prva Liga side. There’s no reason why that shouldn’t be transferrable to the Superliga as TSC were the best Prva Liga winners for a little while with a +53 goal difference. It would be a surprise were they not to finish in the top eight and, with a little more investment, getting to the top four might not be beyond them.

Outside of those six, the race is on around the bubble of the top/bottom eight. The format of the Superliga is that after each team has played each other home and away, the league splits in two with points halving - each side plays each other once more to bring you to the end. As such, getting into the top eight is a big achievement as it ensures your team won’t be in any bother when it comes to relegation. There are five sides who will fit into this category.

Promoted Javor came second behind TSC last season but that doesn’t mean they are outsiders. Given the nature of some of the sides that’ll be pointed out as fighting relegation, they should set their ambitions that little bit higher given that, in any other season, they would have convincingly won the Prva Liga - they scored four or more in games seven times last season and Ivan Markovic was that league’s top scorer last term. The business they have done has been to improve the side defensively and with their potency not in doubt along with many players still holdovers from their previous Superliga stint such as Eliomar, they should fit back in fairly well.

Napredak fell away in the second half of last season after the loss of Aleksa Vukanovic and new manager Predrag Rogan has to find a way to get them firing quickly. To do so, however, all he has been able to bring in are veterans Jovan Markoski and Tomislav Pajovic. After sixth and seventh in the past two seasons, expect this to be the one where they drop out of the top eight.

The Uranium Boys, Mladost Lucani, have been a secure mid-table side in the Superliga for the past five years and have followed every season in the top eight with a season in the bottom eight. They were fifth last season so logic would tend to dictate that they shouldn’t reach the top eight this year. That said, they welcome back Bogdan Milosevic after a year in France and Ivan Obrovac is as experienced as they come. They should break that one in, one out spell of seasons due to the fallings of others.

Proleter were that eighth side last season and spent most of the year ahead of city rivals Vojvodina. There is unlikely to be a repeat of that - Covic and Lambulic are big losses and it is difficult to see them retaining their top half place this time around. There are worse sides so they shouldn’t be looking at a relegation fight, however.

The last side on this bubble are Vozdovac. They were, if anything, a little disappointing last season and have had massive upheaval this summer. Filip Stuparevic is now gone for good along with key midfielders Andrija Lukovic and Lazar Arsic. Rade Kokovic has not got much of a positive record in his managerial roles to date either. They do welcome back Nemanja Nikolic (not that one, the other one) and Justas Lasickas could be a marvellous signing but it’s fair to expect a poor start to the season followed by a revival late on.

This leaves everyone else looking over their shoulders. The Superliga has two automatic relegation places with third-bottom going into a playoff. After defeating the terrible, if incessantly entertaining, Dinamo Vranje in a playoff, Indija join the Superliga. There have been minimal reinforcements and they are undoubtedly favourites to go down.

The remaining sides are Rad, Radnik, Spartak and Macva. Rad have lost two good players in Lutovac and Bainovic but the club is built around the youth system and there is a fair likelihood that someone else will be promoted to the first team to make up for it - Njegos Petrovic is the obvious name to benefit, but Branko Riznic and Dejan Paradjina may come through to compensate. Either way, last season was disastrous for the club and they will not get away with a seven-month streak without a win again.

Macva were solid last season and Nikola Dukic is a promising addition at left back as is Filip Cermelj but they rely on both kicking on. Radnik have lost players and come in weaker than last season by some margin. Spartak have lost a key piece of their puzzle in Nemanja Glavcic but Vladimir Gacinovic (father of Mijat) is wily enough to keep them safe. Of the four, Rad would be the favourites for relegation given their form last season and that they have lost their best player.

The Superliga starts next week on Friday 19th with Vozdovac vs TSC with game week two bringing a clash between last season’s top two at Rajko Mitic as Zvezda take on Radnicki Nis. Highlights are uploaded on the Superliga Youtube site on the day of the games so it’s very easy to keep track with what’s going on, even if much of the extra-curricular stuff requires far more immersion to get one’s head around.

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