The truth about Red Star's 1945 visit to Tirana and why Rajko Mitic wore his military uniform

The two squads' joint picture; Photo archive: Branislav Jocic

After 75 years, Red Star (Crvena Zvezda) Football Club is returning to Tirana. The red-and-whites will play a match against Tirana FC in the capital of Albania on Tuesday, August 25, starting at 8 pm, within the 2nd round of Champions League qualifications. It will be the second ever visit of the Serbian club to this city, and it was in Tirana that Red Star played its first game abroad.

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Many today use that visit as an argument for calling out the red-and-whites and their alleged brotherhood with the Albanian national team. From this time distance, it seems strange that Red Star played a friendly match against the Albanian national team in Tirana, but there was nothing controversial about that 75 years ago.

Red Star fans from the Redstarbelgrade portal contacted historians who have documentation and an archive of photos from that period, who also described how the match between Red Star and the Albanian national team came about. Red Star was the representative of the United League of the Anti-Fascist Youth of Serbia and as such played against the national team of Albania, which was the representative of the United League of the Anti-Fascist Youth of Albania.

This was Red Star's 8th game in history in total, and the first the club played on foreign soil. The match was played on April 22, 1945, and Red Star was sent to Tirana by decree, together with the Ivo Lola Ribar Cultural and Artistic Association, based on the decision of FISOS, the governing body for all physical culture and sports disciplines in the country at that time.

Albania was not considered an enemy state back then, because the regime of Enver Hoxha was anti-fascist, so the visit of Red Star was organized for the purpose of spreading anti-fascism. The leader of Yugoslavia, Josip Broz Tito, had excellent relations with Enver Hoxha in the initial years of his rule, and even considered a unification of Albania and Yugoslavia.

Rajko Mitic (right); Photo archive: Branislav Jocic

What's interesting is that many Red Star players were fighting on the Srem Front at that time, because the Second World War in Yugoslavia was not over yet, so Rajko Mitic arrived in Tirana directly from the front, and is seen in a picture taken in Tirana wearing his military uniform.

Mile Kos, the legend of Partizan Football Club, also spoke about that, stressing that Red Star had the best team in the first years since its founding, but that it suffered because many of its players were soldiers on the front.

Red Star beat Albania 5-2 in that match. At that time, Red Star players wore yellow jerseys, which they inherited from Slavija FC, because the red-and-white kits were yet to be made.

Red Star's starting eleven in that match included Bijelic, Stankovic, Filipovic, Djajic, Jovanovic, Ciric, Jezerkic, Mitic, Tomasevic, Pecenic, Horvatinovic.

Goals were scored by Jezerkic, Mitic, Tomasevic, Pecenic and Stankovic, and there were 25,000 spectators at the stadium.

However, if it was normal 75 years ago for Red Star to travel to Tirana and play a friendly match, the situation is now completely different, as Tirana fans are already making threats against the red-and-whites, sending horrible threats along with songs about "killing Serbs" and drawings of three fingers (as in the Serbian salute) cut off.

There is no doubt that Red Star will not be greeted "with flowers" on their second visit to Tirana, as they had been in 1945 - the "welcome" will be this time be, in slang terms, "with a knife."

(Telegraf.rs)