By Alistair Aird
Rangers face FK Crvena Zvezda (Red Star Belgrade) at Ibrox on Thursday evening in the first leg of the Europe League last 16. Up for grabs is a place in the quarter-finals which for Rangers would be another progressive step towards the top table of the European game. We’ve made the last 16 in each of the last two seasons and in doing so have almost single-handedly contributed to the skyrocketing of Scotland’s coefficient.
After the scintillating 7-4 (I’m still counting the goal that VAR ruled out) aggregate win over Borussia Dortmund, Rangers come into this game as favourites to win the tie. But we face a side that are on a fine run of form and have some significant threats middle to front.
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Red Star made it through to this stage by finishing top of Group F. Like Rangers, they parachuted into the Europa League after missing out on Champions League qualification. After defeating FC Kairat Almaty 6-2 on aggregate in the Champions League Second Qualifying Round, they lost out narrowly to an FC Sheriff Tiraspol side that a few weeks later won in the Bernabau. And while Rangers were seeing off Alashkert in the Europa League play-off, Red Star were thumping CFR 1907 Cluj 6-1 on aggregate.
Joining the Serbian champions in Group F were a couple of recent foes of Rangers, SC Braga and FC Midtjylland, and also PFC Ludogorets. The group was tightly contested, but three wins and two draws from six games was enough to edge Red Star through. They scored six goals and conceded four, ranking them lowest alongside Rangers in terms of goalscoring for teams that qualified from the group stages.
Domestically, Red Star also have similarities with Rangers, as they too find themselves in a two-horse title race with their city rivals. They currently trail Partizan by two points, and the gulf between those two and the best of the rest, FK Čukarički, is 19 points. As we know in Scotland, Rangers are three points behind Celtic, with Hearts languishing 20 points behind in third place.
Red Star are on a hot streak too. They last lost a game back on 4 November – a 1-0 defeat against FC Midtjylland in the Europa League – and since then they have won 13 and drawn two of the 15 matches played across three competitions. They have won their last six league games, including a 2-0 derby win over Partizan, and kept clean sheets in their last three games. And in that run of six victories, Red Star have scored 18 goals and only conceded three.
Their principal attacking threats are Aleksandar Katai and their January signing from Molde in Norway, Ohi Omoijufano.
Katai is 31 years old and has scored 17 goals in 21 league appearances this season. Seven of those goals have come in his last seven games, and he hit a hat-trick as Red Star defeated FK Novi Pazar 5-0 at the weekend. That was his second treble of the season, the other coming against Mladost in November. He has also claimed five assists.
Katai usually plays either as an attacking midfielder or on the left wing. This is his second spell with Red Star. After starting out with FK Vojvodina Novi Sad, he moved to Greece in 2011, but during four years with Olympiacos, he had four loan spells away from the club. The last of those was with Red Star, and he signed for the club permanently at the start of 2015/16.
In Greece, Katai had developed a reputation for being less than keen on his defensive duties, but if that was the case then he more than made up for it going forward when he came back to Serbia. At the end of his first season, Katai was top scorer in the Serbian Super League and was a league champion too. He scored 21 goals in 33 appearances and claimed nine assists.
The following season, Red Star failed to qualify for the Champions League group stages. Katai scored three goals in four games, but a 4-2 win for Ludogrets after extra time in Belgrade took them through.
Red Star were pipped for the title that year by Partizan, and at the end of the campaign, Katai agreed a three-year deal with Alaves. In his two seasons in Spain, he made 30 appearances and scored four goals before he was loaned to Chicago Fire. He also had a brief and controversial stint at LA Galaxy before returning to Red Star on a two-year deal in July 2020. Katai has ten caps for Serbia, winning the first of them in a 4-1 defeat against the Czech Republic in 2015.
Oslo-born Omoijuanfo became the youngest goalscorer in the Norwegian top flight when he scored for Lillestrøm SK against Strømsgodset in July 2010. After 12 goals in 95 appearances for Lillestrøm – a team Rangers faced in the European Cup Winners’ Cup in season 1979/80 – he joined FK Jerv.
Eighteen goals and eight assists earned Omoijuanfo a move to Stabæk. Of the 100 appearances he made for the club, 75 came at centre forward, and he netted 38 goals in that century of games. That return stimulated interest from Norwich City, Sheffield United and QPR, but in 2019, Ohi ended up at another former European opponent of Rangers, Molde FK.
His 15 goals and seven assists helped Molde win the title in 2019 – a team called Bodø/Glimt were runners-up – and his 27 goals in 29 games in the 2021 season alerted Red Star. They snared him on a three-year deal that kicked off in January of this year. And after scoring on his debut against Cukaricki, he has claimed a further three goals in the five games he has played, including the opening goal against Partizan Belgrade on 27 February.
At 6ft 2in tall, the Norwegian will be a handful for Connor Goldson and, most likely, Leon Balogun. As for nullifying the threat posed by Katai, that’s probably going to sit on the shoulders of the in-form duo of John Lundstram and Ryan Jack. However, if he drifts out to the left then it will be our skipper that will have to curb his menace.
If any Rangers supporter thinks that beating one of Europe’s elite, Borussia Dortmund, gives the club a right of passage to the last eight then the above should give them some perspective. Irrespective of what the bookmakers may think, this is a tough assignment. Whether we call them Crvena Zvezda or Red Star Belgrade, this team are the real deal.
But under the lights at Ibrox is a special, unique and intimidating experience. Red Star have a few players with experience of playing at this level – 10 of their squad have made over 40 appearances in European competition – but not many will have encountered that spine-tingling, ‘hairs on the back of your neck’ moment when the teams emerge from the tunnel around 19:55.
These are the nights we longed for in the darkest of dark days. Let’s enjoy this and roar on the Rangers. You never know, this year might be our year. For Manchester read Seville, the place famous for its orange crop.
Are they ready? Let’s hope we are.
