Red Star in Plzen, Rijera Shuts Down Exit Talk
Ahead of the return leg in Plzen, where it defends a 3-0 lead from Belgrade, Red Star also heard coach Albert Rijera's take on the departures of Nair Tiknizjan and Jung Vu Seol.
The question came within the first few minutes of the press conference in Plzen on Wednesday evening: what is Red Star doing without Nair Tiknizjan and Jung Vu Seol, the two players who left the club over the summer. Albert Rijera did not reach for a diplomatic answer.
“They are not here anymore, and I will not waste energy on them. The best players are the ones on the list here, they are the players I love, the ones I give information to, the ones I give the knowledge for tomorrow’s match to,” Red Star’s coach said when asked about the pair who departed.
Red Star kicks off tonight at 7 p.m. in the return leg of the Europa League playoff against Viktoria Plzen. The Belgrade side defends the result from the first match at the Marakana, where it won 3-0. Mirko Ivanic scored twice, and Aleksandar Katai added the third from the penalty spot. Sources differ on the exact minutes: Sportklub lists the 36th and 52nd minutes for Ivanic’s goals and the 87th for Katai’s penalty, while B92 and Kurir put the goals in the 36th and 53rd minutes and the penalty in the 88th.
Who is traveling to Plzen
Rijera named 23 players for the trip to Czechia. The squad list includes goalkeepers Mateus and Ivan Gutesa, a back line built around Sava Radanovic, Rodrigao, Derik Lukasen and Milos Veljkovic, a midfield of Stefan Gudelj, Rade Krunic and Timi Maks Elsnik, and an attack led by Mirko Ivanic, Vladimir Lucic, Aleksandar Katai, Marko Arnautovic and Dzej Enem.
Before departing, Red Star also played a domestic match, beating Cukaricki 4-0, so the team arrives in Plzen with momentum and without the added pressure a league defeat would have piled on ahead of a European test.
Tiknizjan to Piraeus, Seol to the Bundesliga
The pair of full-backs who spent the whole summer linked with other clubs ended up leaving anyway. Nair Tiknizjan has switched shirts and moved to Olympiacos, while Jung Vu Seol has signed for Augsburg and heads to the Bundesliga. Tiknizjan made 54 appearances for Red Star, scoring one goal and adding seven assists. Seol arrived earlier, played 101 matches, scored eight goals and set up 16 more.
Rijera’s answer at the press conference made clear he considers the subject closed. He was not willing to reveal his lineup for the return leg, though, explaining that Czech journalists were also in the room.
“If I say that, there are Czech journalists here. We would be handing them an advantage. I don’t have just 11 players, we had a great test over the weekend in the league. Maybe I have a surprise, you will see,” Rijera said.
Not settling for the 3-0
Even though Red Star enters the match with a three-goal cushion, Rijera made it clear his team will not play to protect the result.
“I see a lot of positive things, we are coming to play the second part. It is not over until it is over. That is the message I sent. I will not say by how many goals we won. The players need to come with the desire to win. The players want to repeat a good performance. We are playing away here, against a rival that has nothing left to lose,” Rijera said at the start of the press conference.
He added that the approach will not change regardless of the result brought from Belgrade.
“I will never set up a match to sit back and wait, whether we have an advantage or not. From the first minute, if a player is passive, playing passes backward: substitution. The players have to understand that. When you wait, things can happen,” the Spanish coach concluded.
The bench he inherited after Beer Sheva
Rijera took charge of Red Star after Dejan Stankovic was sacked following the club’s elimination by Hapoel Beer Sheva in Champions League qualifying. The Belgrade side has not lost since, and Viktoria Plzen has spent the last seven days without a coach of its own, which raises the question of how much resistance the Czech club can really offer against this version of Red Star. Judging by his answers at the press conference, that does not appear to be putting Rijera at ease either.
The Belgrade club’s European campaign has not gone without administrative headaches, though. UEFA recently fined Red Star 99,500 euros and handed down a suspended closure of the North Stand, so the results on the pitch are, for now, being built alongside a cleanup of problems off it.
The return leg in Plzen kicks off tonight at 7 p.m. The winner of the tie will be known after 90, possibly 120 minutes, and reaching the Europa League league phase would confirm that changing coaches midsummer, however risky it looked right after the Hapoel elimination, has already started to pay off.
