Zvezda smash Partizan 3-0, ninth straight Serbian title
Erakovic, Avdic and Seol on the scoresheet in the 179th eternal derby; the Red and Whites beat their rivals three times in a single season for the first time in 28 years.
Adem Avdic had never until Saturday played the eternal derby. The Bosnian midfielder, who arrived in January from Austrian side LASK for 2.1 million euros, sat in the Marakana dressing room forty minutes before the match and turned over in his head the pictures of his last away game in Sarajevo, with a packed stand and whistles. In the 68th minute, when Partizan defender Sava Simic in panic deflected the ball after a Lazar Kostov layoff, Avdic, in the air, with his left foot, from sixteen metres, struck the ball under the crossbar and ran off towards the North Stand. That was his first derby and his first goal in a Crvena Zvezda shirt.
Crvena Zvezda in the 33rd round of the Mozzart Bet SuperLiga play-off beat Partizan 3-0 and clinched their ninth consecutive Serbian championship. The scorers were Aleksa Erakovic in the 18th, Avdic in the 68th and Hyun-jun Seol in the 87th minute, according to the report on portal nova.rs. This is the 37th title in the history of the Red and Whites.
How did Zvezda dominate?
The first goal came from a cross from the right, which the Partizan defender let slip between himself and the goalkeeper, and Erakovic from five metres simply leant in and put the ball into the net. By the end of the first half, the Black and Whites had only one shot on target, which says enough about the quality gap in this meeting. Partizan coach Aleksandar Stanojevic in the 35th minute tried to change the formation from 4-3-3 to 4-2-3-1, pushing Daniel Krasic into the number-10 zone. That did not help either.
The second half began with Zvezda’s quick counter-attacks that stretched Partizan around the pitch. After Avdic’s goal, which marked his name as a derby scorer on debut, Stanojevic in the 75th minute decided to send on Eric Florentin and dial up the pressure, but Seol in the 87th minute, after a pass from Erakovic, who had three contributions in the match with assist and goal, set the final 3-0. Zvezda coach Vladan Milojevic in his interview with Telesport said this was “a victory of style and character, especially in the defensive work of midfield”.
Statistically, Zvezda had 64 per cent possession, 17 attempts on goal of which seven were on target, while Partizan registered only two on target. The numbers are worse than a conservative observer would expect after watching the match, but the result is not a lie. With today’s win, the Red and Whites have beaten their rivals three times in this championship, something that has not happened since the 1997-98 season, according to Telegraf.
What now for Partizan and what for Zvezda?
Stanojevic after the match said he “will not be resigning, but that Partizan must go through a serious rebuild if it wants to keep up with Zvezda”. This was already the fourth time this season he had mentioned a rebuild, which sources close to Humska interpret as preparation of the public for several transfers as early as June. The Black and Whites’ target is a runners-up spot, which would take them into the UEFA Europa League qualifiers, but they are being squeezed in that race by Vojvodina on an identical 64 points.
Zvezda play their final SuperLiga match against Spartak Subotica on Wednesday May 28, when they will formally lift the trophy in a ceremony after the game. Then the summer starts, with UEFA Champions League qualifying beginning on July 22. From what we hear, the club is already in talks with two centre-forwards from the Portuguese league, but concrete names have not yet been finalised.
The next Partizan game is an away trip to Mladost in Lucani on Wednesday May 28, at 6 p.m.
On the personal side, nine consecutive Zvezda titles are not a measure of the quality of the Serbian league as a whole, but of how deep the gap between the top two clubs and the rest of the championship has become. Vojvodina in the last two seasons has tried to set itself up as a third party, but neither in budget nor in infrastructure can it follow these two cities. Mladost Lucani, which entered the play-off in the 2024-25 season, has this year spent more time in the relegation zone than in mid-table.
The question now posed by every Partizan fan is whether nine straight Zvezda titles are the sign of the end of a cycle, or just the difficulty of a single bad season. Stanojevic was installed in January in place of Igor Duljaj, with the expectation he would bring a pragmatic game into central midfield, but the results in the play-off phase have not confirmed it. General director Milos Vazura has not mentioned Stanojevic’s resignation, but sources close to Humska say the summer is a period for “deep analysis and concrete personnel decisions”, a phrase that in Belgrade has had one meaning for decades.
