PARTIZAN - RED STAR
Only Sanity Can Save The Serbs.


4

2

"Dude, I went to one of those last summer," Ali said. A football derby in Belgrade was reason for excitement -- I could tell by his voice. "It was crazy."

After seeing FK Sarajevo play cross-town rival Željo in October, I would have assumed as much about a match between the two biggest teams in Belgrade. This city is over four times the size of the capital of BiH, and if you've been here as long as I have, you would know that Serbians are just as Balkan as those Bosnians.

"Balkan," as in "intense."

"Just remember one thing, though," he warned.

"What's that?"

Ali suddenly put on his serious face.

"Do not wear any red, or any black."

I laughed. "Come on man, it can't be that bad."

Ali just stared at me. He didn't even crack a smile.

"I'm serious."


I've now seen two soccer games in Belgrade. Partizan played in both. Back in November, on my third day ever in this city -- and my first afternoon at the Three Black Catz -- I went with Gricko (oh, how I miss my Japanese human pet), Johannes and Ana to see that team get its ass kicked, 3-1. Admission was free. Attendance was scarce. And the scene wasn't too impressive -- not after my experience with the Sarajevo madness that had introduced me to the concept of flare-throwing as an expression of fan support.

But the Sarajevo madness had been a derby (which, for Americans who don't watch soccer, is like Yankees-Mets, White Sox-Cubs, or L.A. Rams-L.A. Raiders); the weak sauce I saw my first week in Beograd was like having the Devil Rays come to town.

Saturday was a completely different story, though.

It was akin to the difference between a "Big Village" Sarajevo atmosphere and an "On the weekends, I travel to capital city to watch a ladies make a toilet" Belgrade ambience.

For one thing, admission wasn't free this time around -- it was 800 dinars.

Secondly, there were people there -- lots of people. Forty thousand of them.

And finally, there were the riot cops.


Lord, were there riot cops.

I will just say this. Well into the long walk from the horse to the stadium with Vlada, O.G.'s "common law brother-in-law," we had already run into the beginning of their formation by the time we reached Sveti Sava. That's still a good 15 minutes or more from the Red Star stadium.

It was like "RoboCop: Srbija" meets "The Matrix Reloaded."

And trust me, these guys love their jobs.


It wasn't just Vlada who had warned me about them. It was Joca (Yoht-suh), Vlada's old army buddy, too. These two guys may differ on which team to root for -- one is all Crvena Zvezda, the other partial to Partizan -- but they are on the same page regarding one issue: Beware of Serbian riot police on a day their two teams meet.

But not everyone in Belgrade thinks on that wavelength.

Before we even got into the stadium, I saw a scuffle. It happened too fast to register what was going on in real time -- only after the dust had cleared did I find out what had happened. A Partizan fan just strolled up to a Red Star rival, who he almost surely did not even know, and jacked him right in the face -- pow! Just like that. About .00002 seconds later, a platoon full of "Gendarmie" cops -- like a pack of hunting dogs on a scent -- converged on the trouble-makers, nightsticks swinging.

"See what I mean?" Vlada asked.

I gulped. Seen.


I haven't checked Google Earth, but I think Saturday's game was visible from space. On each end of the field, Red Star Cigani and Partizan Grobari spent more time shooting off flares and lighting things on fire than watching the game.


And they love to throw them on the field.


During the game.


It really is not about the sport with these people. I'm not really sure what it is about, quite frankly. An outlet for pent up frustration? A chance to feel a part of a group? A chance to beat some ass? It is an anthropology study waiting to happen.

I mean, someone died at one of these blood matches in the late 90's, when a Partizan fan launched a fireworks rocket over the field and into the Red Star section. Vlada was at the game, sitting ten feet above the kid whose chest was ripped apart by the impact, and he watched the dude's life extinguish in the stands below.

I'm intense as can be about my teams: The Astros, Virginia basketball, Virginia baseball, the Gus Burgers, etc. But with the exception of the time when I had to watch White Sox fans celebrate a World Series championship in my own stadium, I've never once had any kind of urge to harm a fan of another team.

Physically harm, that is. I do like make fun of them. (Just ask J.J. Redick about his shoulder acne complex, and why he never started to wear a cutoff t-shirt under his jersey until just after his visit to Charlottesville his freshman season -- ESPN The Magazine ran a story in March 2004 which said the Duke players rated the "Virginia fan who dressed up like Redick, complete with fake red splotches as a dig at a 19-year-old's bacne" as the third worst opposing fan J.J. had ever had to deal with). Sticks and stones may break bones, but words will never hurt? The death stare that Golden Boy sent my way during warm-ups that day -- when I was slapping the baseline with both palms, spasming uncontrollably like a rabid dog and yelling, "I'm in your head Redick! I'M IN YOUR HEEEAAAADDD!" -- seemed to say otherwise.

So at least I had one thing in common with these Serbs shooting off flares and killing each other with rockets at a soccer game.

"Joca, look man, they're not even watching the game!" Eight hundred dinars, or about $14 (not cheap for someone making Serbian wages), and the entire Partizan section had turned its back to the field to take a verbal jab at their rivals. On the South Side, a sea of black was jumping up and down in unison, arms around each other's shoulders, catching a glimpse of each others butts -- while play was going on.

"They don't care about the game, man," Joca said, half-amused, half-embarrassed. "Do you know what they're yelling?"

"What?"

"'Whoever isn't jumping is a gypsy! YOU'RE A GYPSY!'" On the second sentence, everyone would turn around and point across the field to the sea of red.

Remember when I called the Red Star fans "Cigani"? That literally means "gypsies" in Serbian. The Crvena Zvezda supporters didn't choose that name, but they don't shy away from it when their enemies taunt them. It's some sort of reverse psychology that shows that words really don't hurt them, like Eazy-E being in a group called NWA.

But it's still funny to me.

"That is perfect," I said. And then I started to laugh for about 45 seconds, uncontrollably, as I listened to 10,000 or more drunk Serbian dudes, clad in black and white, scream across the field that 10,000 or more other drunk Serbian dudes, clad in red and white, were all gypsies because they weren't jumping up and down with their backs to the game.

Absolutely brilliant.

They love their flares, they love their taunts, and they love their violence. But they also love their whiney-baby complainer monkeys known as "professional soccer players."


Partizan had taken a 2-1 lead midway through the second half, so it was not the time for Red Star to pull one of those Euro, "Oohhh, my knee! My knee!" moments that I have come to loathe more than anything about this sport. They were losing; they needed to quit crying and start playing. (And please, don't even give me the, "It's part of the game" spiel. I would rather have a first round exit with a U.S. team that plays like men than a World Cup trophy hoisted up by Italian women). So when a Red Star forward was taken down on his offensive end of the field, he chose to lay on the ground as the opposition streaked upfield with a man advantage, writhing in pain like he had stepped on an I.E.D., praying that he would hear the blow of a whistle. He didn't.

Partizan took a shot on goal, and missed. Whiney-baby complainer monkey kept writhing. Partizan took another shot. Another miss. More screaming, and looking for a whistle. Partizan took another shot. This time, it hit the back of the net. And he was still crying, as if he had to prove that he truly was hurt, since he had pulled an Elton Brown and was now looking like a complete fool. It wasn't until the Partizan celebration was dying down that the dude got up, and whaddya know? Lazarus -- who may have prevented a goal had he gotten up 45 seconds before he did -- was miraculously healed.

But it was 3-1 by that point, and the game was pretty much sealed.

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"So," Joca had said, almost as soon as the three of us sat down on the East Side (the peaceful side, tucked in between the insane North -- Red Star -- Side, and insane South -- Partizan -- Side). "Which team are you going to root for?"

"Uhhhhhhhhh." I looked at Vlada, the one who had invited me to the game.

Joca knew by my hesitation that he had lost me already. "I see," he said. "You came with Vlada, so you're going with Red Star."

I honestly did not care who won -- I just figured I had to be a Red Star supporter since a Red Star supporter had invited me to the game. Ninety percent arbitrary, 10 percent rational. Kind of like how Stewart had come to be "die hard Partizan" in Novi Sad three weeks before.

We have now referred to the guy who made it so as "the gypsy from Novi Sad" for so long, I am beginning to convince myself that he really was a cigan. Acke was not a gypsy, but he was a Partizan fan.


I don't remember how we began to talk to the guy, exactly, but I know that we were soon following him from the pljeskavica joint to the only late-night bar in town to have late-night beers.

Acke's friend, whose name I never knew, was not a Partizan fan. He was all Red Star, all the time. And he knew no English, except for one thing, which he wrote in my "little black book" of Serbian vocab:

RED STAR FOREVER.

Acke was having none of that, and made an addendum: A penis, ejaculating onto a logo of Red Star.

Some things are just universal.

I am not the guy that can stay up all night. I am the guy that falls asleep. But before that happened that night in Novi Sad, I witnessed an event which will forever be referred to as "The Gypsy Trinket Exchange."

In Serbia -- in the Balkans, in general -- hospitality is taken very seriously. It is a foreign concept that I will for sure take back with me to the States, because all my life, my policy was, "Bitch, you're sleeping on the floor" for friends who were in town visiting. Acke, who had only met Stewart and I 15 minutes before, viewed us as his "guests," simply for the fact that we were in Serbia, his country. And as guests, it would be anathema for us to pay for a round of beers.

Stewart did that, and Acke began to feel really uncomfortable. It was almost an affront to his honor. He had to give Stewart a gift in return -- something, anything.

Gift No. 1 was a bag of peanuts that Acke found while rummaging through his bag. But that wasn't enough. Into the pockets the search continued.

That was the moment that Stewart became a real Partizan man.

"I give you this," Acke said, holding up a scratched, cracked key chain with the Partizan logo inside -- retail value, about 10 cents. "This is Partizan, best football club in all of Serbia!"

Stewart was, well, wasted by this point, and felt the need to repay Acke's generosity.

All he could find was a Bic lighter. But it was perfect for exchanging with a gypsy.

"This lighter," Stewart said, slightly slurred, but extremely excited, "is from America! I brought it alllllll the way from America, and now it is for you!"

Acke held onto it as if he had just been given a string of glass beads in return for Manhattan. "Thankyou, brother! Thankyou!"

They clasped hands, friends for life, all because of the Gypsy Trinket Exchange.

So it makes sense that Stewart would pick the black Partizan hoodie when choosing from a selection of flea market sweatshirts last night on the streets of Belgrade. He's die hard, after all.


Mathieu, my Black Cat from Quebec, gave me an early birthday gift last night: A real American football. Naturally, we had to go put on an exhibition in the Trg Republike, next to the horse, so that all of Serbia could see what it was they were missing by watching soccer instead of real football. It was cold outside, so Stewy brought his hoodie, and covered it with a heavy jacket, too.

It was visible only two times, the Partizan logo, for a combined total of about 45 seconds: Once when he removed the outer layer, and once when he put the hoodie back on after running around in the cold for an hour. And in that span, Stewart had two "incidents" with Serbian guys who didn't seem to appreciate his choice of club.

"Ehhhh, PARTIZAN!" the sneers went each time. And each time, it was a group that rolled deep.

"Ya know," Stewart said after seeing first hand that the rumors of hostility between the two teams was true, "I think this really does make me the biggest Partizan fan in all of Belgrade. Think about it. When have you ever seen someone wearing a shirt with this word printed on it?"

I thought long and hard, and couldn't come up with anything. He was right.

Only inside the walls of the stadium are people brave enough to do it. And as you can see, it is a wild world in there.