FK Crvena zvezda

Before they had a stadium, a colour or even a badge, the young anti-fascists who founded the club in Belgrade argued for weeks over what to call it. Proleter was on the table. So was Blue Star. So, briefly, were Lenin and Stalin. On 4 March 1945, with Yugoslavia's old pre-war sports societies dissolved by the new communist government, they settled on Crvena zvezda instead — Red Star — and the name has never changed since, through no mergers and no rebrands.

The club plays at the stadium named after Rajko Mitić, one of its own legends, a title it only took formally in December 2014, having been known simply as Stadion Crvena zvezda before that. Seats went in on all four stands, trimming capacity to 49,167. Red and white run through the crest and kit, with blue and gold as the older, secondary colours.

Its one great continental campaign remains 1990/91: the European Cup, won on penalties against Marseille, followed months later by the Intercontinental Cup against Colo-Colo in Tokyo. Two Mitropa Cups, in 1958 and 1968, sit further back in the cabinet. At home the count runs to 71 trophies — 20 Yugoslav championships, three more after the breakup as Serbia and Montenegro, and a run of Serbian Superliga titles that stretches to 2025. The Serbian Cup has gone to Belgrade five years running through the same season.

None of it means as much in the city as the Eternal Derby against Partizan, fought out a few streets apart and rated among the fiercest rivalries anywhere in European football.

A second European final followed the 1991 triumph — the 1992 UEFA Super Cup, lost to Barcelona — and Red Star has not reached one since.