Athletistic/Football. The Serbian football championship is not as popular among Russian spectators as the main European championships. However, the Russians are unlikely to be completely indifferent to him. After all, the RPL and the Serbian Super League have many links. This includes friendly relationships between different teams and specific individuals. Russian coach Alexander Kerzhakov notably moved to Serbia this summer. He led Spartak from Subotica.
About the city
Subotica is a town in northern Serbia, located near the border with Hungary. Subotica is located 155 km from Belgrade. The city is part of the Vojvodina district whose center is Novi Sad. At the same time, while visiting Subotica, I managed to get the feeling of traveling to Hungary without leaving Serbia. In the city center there is a lot of architecture similar to that of the neighboring country. In addition, street name signs and other information signs are duplicated in Hungarian.
Stadium
Spartak Subotica plays its home matches at the Gradski Stadium, built in 1936. Its capacity is 13 thousand spectators. The West Stand looks very decent. It has numerous places for spectators and places for the press. The Eastern Stand is much smaller than the Western Stand, but its structure is roughly the same. But the north and south stands reserved for active supporters do not look very modern. In fact, these are just stages that, most likely, have not changed in any way since the very beginning of the stadium’s existence.
Serbian championship match with Partizan
To watch the match with the participation of Alexander Kerzhakov’s team, it was not the easiest match chosen. This is a match of the 12th round of the Serbian Super League, in which Spartak Subotica hosted Partizan Belgrade. This fight has a pretty serious sign. Alexander Kerzhakov symbolizes Zenit. Additionally, he spoke about the similarity of the colors of his current team and the St. Petersburg club in response to his brother Mikhail Kerzhakov’s jokes. Partizan is currently the leader of the Serbian championship. Among the supporters also, the team is fraternal with CSKA Moscow. Additionally, former army player Bibras Natcho plays for the Belgrade club.
The first half of the match brought no goals scored. At the same time, both teams had dangerous moments. Alexander Kerzhakov’s team was rather lacking in finishing: there was often no player capable of finishing the ball into the empty corner of the goal. Igor Dulyai’s team also created dangerous moments. Bibras Natkho notably hit the post with a powerful shot at the end of the first 45 minutes. Often, the host goalkeeper Aleksandar Vulich saved his team.
In the second half, Partizan broke through again. First, the team captain, Svetozar Markovic, sent the ball into the opponent’s goal after a corner. Then Zahid and Matheus Saldanha scored twice. Thus, the match ended with the victory of Partizan with a score of 3:0.
At the same time, the Balkans are famous for their fans’ active support for their teams. During this match, we were able to witness a powerful performance from the Grobari group. The fact is that Partizan fans are boycotting home matches and demanding the resignation of the management. However, they still attend the guests’ matches.
Partizan continues to lead the Serbian Super League standings with 28 points. Spartak Subotica is eighth with 15 points. It is clear that Alexander Kerzhakov significantly improves the team’s results. A fairly good result of the season would be to reach the top of the rankings. After that, the Russian specialist can seriously think about fighting for a place in the European competition.
Yaroslav Piatykh, Athletistic
Source: Sport
I’m Scott Moore, a professional writer and journalist based in the US. I’ve been writing for various publications for over 8 years now, and have been working as an author at athletistic for the past five years. My work has been featured by some of the leading sports websites and magazines across Europe.