Red Star and Hapoel Meet in Szombathely
Dejan Stankovic named 25 players for the first leg of the Champions League qualifier, as Red Star and Hapoel Beer Sheva play in an 8,903-seat stadium filled to only about a thousand.
Red Star’s official account posted a photo of the squad’s departure on Monday, captioned “Off we go,” along with a plane emoji. The destination is Szombathely in western Hungary, and the opponent is Israeli champion Hapoel Beer Sheva. The first leg of the Champions League third qualifying round kicks off there Tuesday at 7:30 PM.
The drive from Belgrade to Szombathely takes six and a half to seven hours by road, through Novi Sad, Subotica and Budapest, roughly 650 kilometers. The city sits close to the Austrian border, close enough that some Delije who live in the area are actually nearer to it than to Marakana. Geography, then, works in the fans’ favor. Ticket math does not.
Why the match is being played in Hungary at all
Hapoel is the nominal host, but it cannot use its own stadium. Because of the war in Israel, Israeli clubs are playing their European matches at neutral venues, and Beer Sheva has moved its qualifying campaign to the Haladas sports complex, which holds 8,903 spectators.
It is not unfamiliar ground for them. In the second round they beat Iceland’s Vikingur 2-0 there, advancing 3-2 on aggregate after a 2-1 defeat in the first leg. Red Star settled the same round much earlier, winning 4-0 away at Larne and 5-0 at Marakana.
A thousand fans in an 8,903-seat stadium
Hungarian police have not allowed the stadium to operate at full capacity, for security reasons. Instead of almost nine thousand seats, only about a thousand will be open on Tuesday.
- Haladas stadium capacity: 8,903 seats
- approved for the match: about 1,000 spectators
- away section: about 400 Red Star fans
Under UEFA rules the visiting club is entitled to five percent of capacity, which in this case would be around 470 tickets. The Delije are getting slightly fewer than that.
One detail is rarely mentioned, though it says a lot about how the stadium will look. Hapoel itself had fewer than 400 of its own fans at the Vikingur match, because it was playing thousands of kilometers from home. Add the two numbers together and the result is a Champions League qualifier in a stadium that will sound like a preseason friendly. Crowd noise is part of the job in Europe, and on Tuesday there will hardly be any.
A 25-name squad list
Dejan Stankovic named 25 players for the trip. The list includes Mateus, Savo Radanovic, Ivan Gutesa, Nikola Stankovic, Jung Vu Seol, Strahinja Erakovic, Frenklin Tebo Ucena, Derik Lukasen, Stefan Gudelj, Milos Veljkovic, Nair Tiknizjan, Matej Strika, Rade Krunic, Timi Maks Elsnik, Abu Fani, Vasilije Kostov, Mo Cam, Osman Bukari, Loizos Loizu, Mirko Ivanic, Kristijan Balov, Aleksandar Katai, Marko Arnautovic, Dzej Enem and Bruno Duarte.
At the pre-match press conference, the coach summed up the opponent briefly.
A demanding match, against a good opponent who wants to outplay us.
He went into more detail when discussing what Hapoel does with the ball and without it.
Hapoel want to be dominant, and we want to impose our own game too. They won’t give up, sometimes they take too many risks for my taste, for a knockout round. We’re preparing for all their options. They’re not overly fast, but they’re quick enough. They’re very brave, they don’t care much about anything else. We’ll try to take their transition away from them. We’ve already done that against teams like Vojvodina. They play with a lot of risk and we’ll look to “cut off” a ball or two on their half, but then we’ll have to make it count.
Taking away the transition from an opponent that likes to rush forward usually means a high press and a compressed pitch, which is why it made sense for Stankovic to bring up the game against Vojvodina as a reference. Same type of opponent, same recipe.
Asked whether this was the opponent he had hoped for, he said logistics made the decision for him.
I said about both possible opponents that they have strengths and weaknesses. I didn’t hope for one or the other, but whoever we drew, I said it’s a lot easier to travel to Hungary, logistically that suited me better.
What comes after Tuesday
The second leg is on August 11 at 8 PM at Rajko Mitic Stadium, with tickets already on sale online. There the numbers will be reversed compared to Szombathely, so whatever Red Star does not get on the road it can make up for at home.
The money is already secured. By reaching the third qualifying round, the Red and Whites guaranteed themselves a European autumn and at least 3.695 million euros in fixed UEFA payments, so even a possible elimination would not be a financial blow. If Hapoel advances, Red Star would face Czech side Viktoria Plzen in the Europa League playoff.
The match in Szombathely will not feel like a European night, and no picture from the stands will look like Marakana in August. The result, however, counts the same. Red Star has the quality to finish the job as early as Tuesday, then play the return leg in front of its own fans on August 11 without any nerves.
