Ristic Is Back at Marakana After Tiknizian Exit
Nine years after leaving for Krasnodar, Mihailo Ristic has returned to Red Star as a free agent, just hours after the club sold Nair Tiknizian to Olympiacos for seven million euros.
On August 14, 2014, in a match against Radnicki Nis, coach Nenad Lalatovic sent on a young player known to most only through the club’s academy. It was the first senior appearance of Mihailo Ristic, born in Bijeljina and raised as a footballer at Rudar in Ugljevik, who had been brought into the first team by Ricardo Sa Pinto. Twelve years and five clubs later, that same player is a Red Star footballer again.
Mihailo Ristic returned to Marakana on August 15, and he did so as a free agent. His contract with Celta Vigo expired this summer, so Red Star paid not a single euro in compensation for the left back who once left the club’s own academy for a transfer fee.
The timing is what makes this move interesting. On the same day it was announced that Nair Tiknizian was leaving for Olympiacos for seven million euros, five fixed plus two in bonuses, the club already had a solution for the position he vacated. The departure and the arrival of the left back were separated by only a few hours.
What happened to Ristic after he left Marakana
He left Red Star in the summer of 2017, for two million euros, bound for Krasnodar. By then he had played 91 matches for the red and whites and scored seven goals, a number that still says he was more than a purely defensive option for a full back. His career afterward took him through four leagues:
- Krasnodar, with part of a season on loan at Sparta Prague
- Montpellier, where he spent three years and had his most stable spell
- Benfica, where he managed just 12 appearances across two seasons
- Celta Vigo, three seasons, the last one with 14 matches and 743 minutes
He earned nine caps for the Serbia national team.
How many minutes has Ristic actually played?
This is the question that has to come first at Marakana. Over the last four seasons Ristic totaled 53 matches and 2,642 minutes, less than a single full season for a regular starter, spread across four years. Last season in the Spanish league he came off the bench in all four matches he played, while in the Europa League he was in the starting lineup three times.
In other words, Red Star is getting an experienced left back who has not played continuously in recent years. When he did take the field, Celta’s coach used him more often in Europe than in La Liga, and that is a detail with real weight for a club now playing in the Europa League playoff.
Plzen awaits Red Star in four days
The first leg of the Europa League playoff against Viktoria Plzen is set for August 20 at Marakana. That is the deadline for Ristic to be integrated into the new coach’s system, and we wrote about the arrival of Albert Riera at Red Star when he showed up at Marakana with three rules.
Red Star has effectively closed a circle that began with a sale. Tiknizian was a regular starter and left for a fee that does not get turned down in Serbian football, and his replacement arrived without any investment, on a contract that cost nothing, with a ready-made knowledge of the club he is returning to.
The return of a player from the club’s own academy always sounds good at the unveiling. What decides whether this move actually pays off will be measured in minutes, and Ristic has not had many of those in recent seasons. The first test comes in four days.
