Red Star Game

Red Star Game
Thursday, August 06, 2009
1:13 AM

Thursday signified the end of our adventures with Aleks' buddies as they all headed back to the states. The morning was a rough patch for almost everyone. After a really late night at Guca we finally realized that Marko had gotten Yaron, Mitch and I all sick. When confronted the conversation went something like this:

US - Marko are you sick?
MS - Huh? What are you talking about no I'm not sick
US - Are you sure you aren't sick?
MS - Well I've been feeling kinda shitty for 3 weeks. I've been coughing a bit too but only at night
US - Are you serious? Doesn't that mean you're sick?
MS - I said I've only been coughing at night that doesn't count!

After spending most of the day feeling like the death I sacked up and jumped in the mini-bus and headed to the Red Star Beograd soccer game. The trip went smoothly aside from a few suicide lane car-passing moves by the daring driver to keep everyone on their toes. 14 of us were dropped off at the stadium and met up with another 10 people to make a pretty healthy group to go cheer on Beograd's finest vs Dinamo Tsibili from Georgia.

Red Star has been in the pits lately and as a result of an earlier loss needed to win the game by 3 goals to advance to the next stage of the tournament they were playing in, and after a first minute goal by Tsibili, the odds of that happening weren't good. The stadium was half full, but of the 4 sections, the South (the visitor fans area) was completely empty, the east and west, where the 'regular' fans sit were half full, and the north section, where the ultras and hooligans sit was completely packed.

The north looked like a student section on steroids, regardless of the score they stood, jumped, cheered, and sang, the entire game. By the entire game I mean half-time included. There are actually people that stand up in that section and watch to see if people aren't standing and singing the songs. If they don't then they either get beat up or kicked out of the section. At the end of the game riot police are out in full force to ensure nobody gets out of line. We walked down to the center of the city and saw plenty of people celebrating along the way, after which the mini-bus picked us up again and we headed back to Cacak.