Red Star Sells Lacmanovic and Duarte for 3 Million

While a 17-year-old sat on a plane bound for Turin, on the other side of the world a forward who had worn Red Star’s shirt at the Marakana just days earlier was already pulling on a Vasco da Gama jersey. Twenty-four hours after crashing out of Europa League qualifying, Red Star Belgrade turned the final hours of the transfer window into a genuine fire sale.

Lacmanovic on His Way to Turin

Mateja Lacmanovic, a left-footed center back from Zemun, flew to Turin for a medical and to sign his contract with Juventus. The 17-year-old came through Red Star’s entire youth academy and signed a professional contract with the club back in April, but he never made his first-team debut for the Belgrade side. According to Mozzart Sport, the fee is set at around one million euros with bonuses included.

The young defender’s departure continues a pattern Red Star has followed in recent seasons: the club regularly sells its teenagers early in their careers, often before they get anywhere near the first team. This summer already saw 17-year-old Aleksa Damjanovic leave, and in previous seasons Red Star lost Veljko Milosavljevic, Andrija Maksimovic, Lazar Jovanovic, Strahinja Stojkovic, Jovan Mijatovic, Kosta Nedeljkovic and Stefan Lekovic while they were still teenagers.

Duarte Returns Home, to Vasco da Gama

While Lacmanovic was flying to Italy, Bruno Duarte landed in Brazil on August 27 and formally sealed his move to Vasco da Gama in his home country. Red Star will collect 2,000,000 euros for the Brazilian forward, the exact sum the Portuguese club Farense paid the Belgrade side two years earlier, in 2024, when they brought him to the capital.

Duarte played 98 matches for Red Star, scoring 42 goals and adding 14 assists, numbers that place him among the club’s most productive forwards of the past several seasons. Red Star had received stronger offers for him in the winter, but the club judged him essential to the squad at the time and waited until the end of August to complete the sale.

Vasco da Gama is welcoming him into a difficult situation. With 15 rounds left in the Brazilian championship, the club sits second from bottom in the table and is locked in a direct relegation fight with Ceara, Mirassol, Internacional, Gremio and Santos. Duarte’s experience and his scoring record from the Serbian SuperLiga should earn him an immediate place in the attack.

A Third Departure the Same Day: Seol to Augsburg

The trio of exits was completed by the transfer of Jung Vu Seol. The South Korean player signed with Germany’s Augsburg, a deal that brings Red Star 3,750,000 euros, the largest fee of the three transfers.

Added together, the three sales brought Red Star nearly 7 million euros in the space of just a few days, in the shadow of their elimination from Europe. Money arriving from outside the club is rarely the only consolation after a qualifying collapse, but for a club that systematically builds its budget on outgoing transfers, this was the day that policy showed itself most clearly: two young players and one experienced forward left within 24 hours, while fans were still arguing over the elimination.

For Partizan’s crosstown rival, it also means a squad reshaped ahead of the season’s continuation. Duarte’s exit leaves a hole up front that the coach must fill before the next SuperLiga round, while Lacmanovic’s transfer, even though the teenager never played for the first team, confirms that Red Star’s youth academy still earns the most from players its own fans never got the chance to know.