Two clubs preparing for very different seasons met in Belgrade on Monday and could not find a winner between them. Crvena Zvezda 0-0 Slovan Bratislava. A dress rehearsal, as the pre-match build-up had called it, that ended without the gloss of a goal but with both managers likely taking something useful from the 90 minutes regardless.
Dejan Stanković’s side arrived as favourites and looked it for periods. Crvena Zvezda had opened their pre-season campaign in Austria five days earlier with a 2-1 win over SKU Amstetten — Mirko Ivanić and Sheriff Enem on the scoresheet in that one. The Serbian champions, fresh off another season confirming their status as the strongest club in the country, carried real momentum into this one. Stanković had been clear after the Amstetten game that results were secondary at this stage — quality of football and tactical discipline mattered more. Monday gave him plenty to work with on that front, even without a goal to show for it.
Slovan arrived with their own narrative developing. This is a club in transition. Yaya Touré took over as head coach this summer — the first senior managerial role of his post-playing career, and a significant appointment for a club with genuine European ambition. His first test had come days earlier, a tight 1-0 win over Austria’s GAK. Belgrade was always going to be the sterner examination. Crvena Zvezda, even in pre-season, rarely stray from their core identity — high pressing, heavy use of the flanks, plenty of time spent in the opposition half. Touré’s Slovan needed to show they could live with that.
For long periods, they did. The match followed the pattern that had been predicted beforehand — Crvena Zvezda took the initiative, pushed numbers forward, used the width of the pitch to stretch Slovan’s defensive shape. But the final product was missing, the kind of rust that shows up in week-one friendlies when sharpness has not yet returned. Slovan, for their part, stayed compact, picked their moments to break, and were disciplined enough not to give away the kind of cheap chances that punish disorganised pre-season sides.
Both squads used the match for rotation. Neither manager was treating the scoreline as the priority — the emphasis throughout the buildup had been on fitness, shape, and identifying combinations that might carry into the competitive season ahead. Crvena Zvezda’s qualifying campaign for the Champions League begins soon, a tie against the winner of Tre Fiori and Larne awaiting them in the second qualifying round. Slovan have been handed a tie against the winner of Flora Tallinn and Iberia 1999 Tbilisi in the same round. Both clubs have real European business to attend to within weeks, which made Monday’s low-stakes, high-information friendly exactly the kind of fixture both technical staffs wanted at this point in their preparations.
The goalless scoreline will not trouble either camp particularly. Crvena Zvezda extend their unbeaten start to preparations — one win, one draw from two matches so far. Slovan, for their part, have now played a win and a draw under Touré’s early guidance, untested in defeat as his new project begins to take shape.
For Stanković, the value of Monday was in seeing his pressing structure tested by a side set up specifically to resist it. For Touré, it was about establishing whether his football philosophy — still being implemented, still finding its first real shape — could hold up against one of the more aggressive sides in Serbian football. On the evidence of 90 minutes in Belgrade, there is work still to do on both sides, but neither departed with obvious alarm.
Pre-season friendlies rarely tell the full story. What both clubs will take from Monday is information — about fitness levels, about partnerships, about how new ideas translate onto the pitch under some degree of competitive pressure. The qualifying rounds that follow in the coming weeks will offer a far sterner examination of where each side actually stands.
For live international club friendly coverage and pre-season football news, visit fawanews.org.uk. Full Champions League qualifying fixtures and draws are available at the official UEFA website.
Crvena Zvezda 0-0 Slovan Bratislava International Club Friendly | Monday, 29 June 2026 Stadion Rajko Mitić, Belgrade, Serbia
Goals: None | Half-time: 0-0
Crvena Zvezda — Manager: Dejan Stanković | Previous result: 2-1 win over SKU Amstetten (Mirko Ivanić, Sheriff Enem) Slovan Bratislava — Manager: Yaya Touré (first season) | Previous result: 1-0 win over GAK
Upcoming European fixtures: Crvena Zvezda vs winner of Tre Fiori/Larne (Champions League 2nd qualifying round) | Slovan Bratislava vs winner of Flora Tallinn/Iberia 1999 Tbilisi (Champions League 2nd qualifying round)
