Red Star Belgrade players celebrate reaching the Champions League by riding an ARMOURED VEHICLE from their stadium and shooting flares after beating Young Boys
- Red Star Belgrade qualified for Champions League after drawing Young Boys 1-1
- Their players and fans celebrated by riding and armoured troop carrier vehicle
- Fans also let off flares on the streets outside the ground after Tuesday’s result
After parking a battle tank at the gates of their stadium, Red Star Belgrade fans packed into an open-top armoured troop carrier with the players to celebrate their Champions League qualification.
The Serbian team reached the group stage of the Champions League for a second successive season following a 1-1 draw with Swiss champion Young Boys on Tuesday.
The home side took the lead through Aleksa Vukanovic just before the hour mark before El Fardou Ben Nabouhane’s own goal nine minutes from time set up a tense ending.
Red Star Belgrade players and fans let off flares and celebrate on top of armoured troop carrier
Aleksa Vukanovic’s goal helped Red Star reach the Champions League group stages
But Red Star held on to qualify via the away goals rule, having drawn the first leg in Switzerland 2-2.
After Tuesday’s match, Red Star fans and players joined the late night victory parade on the streets of the Serbian capital by riding on a large armored personnel carrier.
It was not clear who provided both the troop carrier and the T-55 battle tank which triggered angry reaction in Croatia because they say it symbolizes the Serb-led army intervention during the bloody breakup of the Yugoslav federation in the 1990s.
Red Star fans pose in front of a former Yugoslav army T-55 tank outside the club’s ground
In a tit-for-tat move, Dinamo Zagreb fans responded by parking a rusty tractor in front of their stadium in the Croatian capital.
The tractor symbolizes the exodus of tens of thousands of Serbs from Croatia in 1995 during a Croatian army offensive to retake the rebel Serb enclaves at the end of the war for independence. The Croatian Serbs fled mostly on tractor trailers.
Dinamo also qualified for the group stage of the Champions League after a 1-1 draw against Rosenborg on Tuesday.