Celtic face storied Red Star in Europa opener

Red Star won Saturday's Belgrade derby at the home of rivals Partizan

Europa League: Red Star Belgrade v Celtic

Venue: Rajko Mitic Stadium, Belgrade Date: Wednesday, 24 September Time: 20:00 BST

Coverage: Listen on BBC Radio Scotland Extra & Sounds, live text commentary on the BBC Sport website & app

The date was 29 May 1991. Bari's Stadio San Nicola on Italy's idyllic southern Adriatic coast was the stage. An iconic club from Yugoslavia provided the shining stars. The Red Stars.

Led by captain and goalkeeper Steven Stojanovic, Red Star Belgrade defied the odds to win the European Cup in an attritional final against Bernard Tapie's well-funded Marseille.

Both sides had enthralled on their way to the showpiece, but the game did not live up to promise and ended goalless. Penalties decided the destination of the 1991 European Cup.

"I think it was the most boring final in European Cup history," defender Sinisa Mihajlovic said years after the match.

It didn't matter.

They scored all five of their spot-kicks, having had a full season of practice because any league matches that were drawn in Yugoslavia that campaign were settled by a shootout.

In that era, Red Star were the real deal.

Rangers assistant manager Walter Smith had a blunt two-word warning to Ibrox boss Graeme Souness after returning from a scouting mission to watch them before their second-round meeting that season.

The first word was "we're" but the second was too salty to print here. Smith was prescient; Red Star cruised past a fine Rangers side.

It seemed they had the world at their feet. The mercurial Robert Prosinecki. The graceful Mihajlovic. The prolific Darko Pancev. The lightning-fast Dragisa Binic.

They were a match for any of the European contenders of the late 1980s and early 90s - AC Milan, Bayern Munich, Sampdoria and Barcelona. It seemed only a question of how many European Cups would come their way.

And then it stopped, as this team of almost wholly homegrown talent was broken up by war.

"We will never know how good we could have been," Stojanovic famously said as he looked back on the dark days that had replaced the glory days.

Civil war erupted and Yugoslavia was torn apart. Red Star's many internationals were denied the chance to challenge at the European Championship at the end of the following season because the country was disqualified from the tournament in Sweden. Famously, their replacements Denmark won it.

Romanian Miodrag Belodedici, who became the first man to win the European Cup with two different clubs having been part of the Steaua Bucharest team that won it in 1986, maintains they would have "gone on winning for years" had the team not been forced apart.

No eastern European side has won it since. It is a region left wondering what might have been.

Katai and Arnautovic present dangers

Indeed, Red Star had only two appearances in the Uefa Cup group stage to dine on across 20 years from 1995 after sanctions prevented Serbian clubs from entering European competition.

In recent years, the Serbian champions have begun to find their feet again with four Champions League appearances over the last seven seasons.

However, like Europa League match-day one opponents Celtic, they were stunned by unfancied opponents in the play-offs for Uefa's premier tournament as Cypriots Pafos ended Red Star's hopes of a third successive campaign at the top table.

Brendan Rodgers will lead his Celtic side into one of the most intimidating arenas in Europe when they enter the imposing Rajko Mitic Stadium.

The hosts' failure to get into the Champions League was caused, in part, by selling a lot of the family silver in the summer as they brought in more than £40m, including the sales of 18-year-old pair Velijko Milosavlejvic to Bournemouth and Andrija Maksimovic to RB Leipzig.

However, there remains plenty for Celtic to concern themselves with.

That is certainly true of veteran Aleksandar Katai, who has already amassed 12 goals in 13 games from midfield having scored 19 last term as they racked up an eighth successive Serbian title.

On Saturday evening, as they defeated neighbours and bitter rivals Partizan in the 'Eternal Derby', Katai formed part of an attacking four with highly-rated 17-year-old Vasilije Kostov, Montenegro's Mirko Ivanic - who has seven goals himself this term - and former West Ham United and Stoke City striker Marko Arnautovic.

The latter arrived at the club in the summer amid a sea of emotion, having promised his former Bologna head coach and Red Star great Mihajlovic that he would sign for the club before the end of his career.

Mihajlovic died of leukaemia in 2022 and Austrian Arnautovic was in tears at his own unveiling as he regaled the story as it came true.

For Celtic, this will be another major test of their poor away European form as they look to start their Europa League campaign in a positive manner by taking on a side that has, incredibly, lost just five league games in the past five seasons.

It is also a club that is desperate to shine brightly on the continental stage once more.