Crvena zvezda vs Omonia

Europa League qualifications, second round - 1st leg

 

The Serbian team was in really bad shape during the pre-season. They met in Slovenia with five not so guality opponents but managed to win only once. After bad results, head coach Robert Prosinecki said something like friendly games are not important and they serve only to team correct mistakes that need to be corrected. He also added that as soon as season starts, his team will play better. And I thought the same, but when games with Naftan came in first round of these qualifications, wen could see even worst Zvezda. One IMO semi proffesional team from Belarus managed to score even six times against Zvezda, by three goals in each game. So, no mater how good job Zvezda made in attack, defense was very weak. After these games Prosinecki was very angry on his players and he has decided to make couple changes in starting eleven: Nikola Mikic - defender and captain wont start today as well defender Jovan Krneta and midfielder Luka Milivojevic. The new players are Marko Vesovic, Milan Jovanovic and Srdjan Mijailovic. And the starting eleven now should look like this:

 

Bajkovic - Vesovic, Maksimovic, Jovanovic, Mladenovic - Dimitrijevic, Mijailovic, Evandro - Lazovic, Kasalica, Milunovic.

 

But in nay case, defense remain weak part of this team and IMO Omonia will have great chance to score in this game at least once. On the other hand, in front of most likely 30-40K of fans, host will play attacking football from the first minute and I really believe they will have also good chances to score here couple times.

 

BTW these two teams already met each other in European cups in the past. It was in 2001 in Champions League qualifications. Back then, quality was by far on the side of Crvena Zvezda, yet they barely managed to win in total score while in game played in Belgrade it was 2-1 to host.