It's well known that our red and white academy has great relations with several football academies. One of those is Zenit Academy from Saint Petersburg. Coaches from Russia have already been our guests at Marakana, where they've forged plans for future joint operations. As a result, four youth teams of Crvena zvezda will play at the Friendship Cup on 19 and 20 February at the Gazprom Academy in Saint Petersburg.
Our U18s team, managed by Nemanja Jokić, will take the following players to Russia: Nikola Borjan, Vasko Vasilev, Vladislav Goldin, Aleksa Ilić, Bratislav Marić, Nikola Motika, Marko Radić, Andrija Stožinić, Kosta Veselinović, Nemanja Vidojević, Vuk Despenić, Igor Marisavljević, Andrej Maslać, Boris Matić, Mihajlo Milosavić, Pavle Ognjenović, Falu Fol and Ivan Nikčević.
Slađan Nikolić takes 20 players born in 2005: Dušan Begović, Jovan Miladinović, Aleksej Vukičević, Luka Đokić, David Đurić, Daris Karišik, Kosta Nedeljković, Luka Nikolić, Luka Stojsavljević, Lazar Đurić, Mihajlo Katanić, Andrej Petrović, Mateja Radonjić, Aleksa Cvetković, Mateja Bubanj, Veljko Vukojević, Veljko Dimitrijević, Dalibor Lazić, Jovan Mijatović and Stefan Miladinović.
Coach Uroš Urošević will oversee 15 players born in 2006: Vuk Draškić, Stefan Maksimović, Danilo Bulatović, Uroš Ilić, Ilija Jakšić, Veljko Milosavljević, Mateja Ostojić, Vuk Roganović, Viktor Stojanović, Andrija Maksimović, Ognjen Milošević, Andrej Mladenović, David Dreo, Darije Markočević and Ognjen Mišić.
Our youngest squad of players born in 2007 will be cocahed by Milorad Vilotić and will have 18 boys meeting Zenit at the Friendship Cup: Pavle Bekonja, Filip Dostanić, Strahinja Bobovac, Igor Bubanja, Ognjen Vulićević, Leon Ivanović, Strahinja Stojković, Đorđe Cvetković, Aleksa Vasilić, Mladen Grujić, Vasilije Kostov, Petar Manojlović, Miloš Maraš, Uroš Đorđević, Andrej Marić, Konstantin Pantić, Petar Popović and Davorin Tošić.
Each of our teams will play two matches against their Zenit counterparts - one on each day of the tournament. This celebration of friendship and football will kick off with the match of the youngest teams of our clubs, on Saturday at 13.00 hours local time (11.00 CET). Then, the other categories will meet with around 15 minutes break between every fixture, with the Under-19s kicking off at 17.25 CET.
The same teams will meet each other again the next day, with the youngest boys kicking off at 09.00 CET. After all four fixtures have been completed, an award ceremony will take place to round off another edition of the Friendship Cup.
This will be our seventh participation in Zenit's tournament, with the red and whites winning the 2019 edition. Our Academy Head Coach Nikola Jelić is looking forward to this test.
"It should be a great experience for our youngsters - two games each against very good Zenit Academy sides. One slight problem will be that we'll land in Russia on the morning of the game, but we'll do our best to represent the club in the best way possible in this fantastic tournament. We're looking forward to some good football when we meet our friends from Russia."