System error? A spicy Champions League draw may well make the pitch a battleground!

For political reasons, Russian and Ukrainian teams cannot clash in UEFA competitions, which is probably perfectly fine, but UEFA has forgotten that similar tensions have historically existed in other regions. In particular, for example, in the countries of the former Yugoslavia! The Champions League play-off draw has set up a potentially very peppery Balkan duel!

Is this a flaw in the system or did it die out in the Balkans long ago? The near future will tell us, either way at UEFA they can pray that one of the Serbian/Croatian pairing drops out in the 3rd Champions League preliminary round.

So what’s it all about? If they advance past Sheriff Tiraspol and advance past Legia Warsaw, Balkan hell will ensue in the form of a CZ Belgrade vs Dinamo Zagreb double header. It’s questionable whether the visiting fans would even be able to attend the potential match, but even without them it’s likely to be a pitch war at the very least.

These two Balkan nations don’t exactly like each other twice, plus there’s historically a huge animosity between the clubs.

In the sad history of the Balkan countries, this duel is written in big, bold letters as the so-called Maksimir chaos. It was this match that, according to many, unsealed the break-up of Yugoslavia and the subsequent war of animosity in Yugoslavia.

Of course, the match may not happen at all, but Crvena Zvezda Belgrade should get past the Moldovan Sheriff and Dinamo Zagreb will go into the double-header with the Polish champion also as a slight favourite. But maybe Dinamo Croatia will be stopped by Czech canon Tomáš Pekhart!

Sources: UEFA, Albert Veli