Vardar Skopje

In the spring of 1987, Vardar finished the Yugoslav First League season locked in a dispute over deducted points. UEFA later reviewed the case and recognised Vardar, not Partizan, as that season's rightful champion — a decision the club still lists among its honours.

The club itself came out of a merger arranged inside a cinema. In July 1947, at the Vardar picture house in Skopje, two rival city sides, Pobeda and Makedonija, agreed to combine into a single club and took the cinema's name for their own. The red and black colours came later and almost by accident: after a spell in blue and white, then red and white, Milan sent over a set of kit after 1963, and Vardar kept the scheme.

They play at the Toše Proeski Arena, named after the Macedonian singer. In 2017/18, Vardar became the first Macedonian side to reach a European group stage, knocking out Fenerbahçe home and away in the play-off round before taking on Zenit, Real Sociedad and Rosenborg in the Europa League group. It matched an earlier depth reached in 2003/04, when a Champions League qualifying win over CSKA Moscow carried them to the third round before Sparta Prague ended the run.

No one has worn the shirt in Europe more often than Muarem Zekir, who made 21 continental appearances for the club.