Domestic football championship and "narrowed" Europe: Spring fight for crumbs

Meridian 20. The first Montenegrin football league continues tomorrow with the matches of the 1th round. In the remaining 18 spring rounds, its 17th edition since independence will be completed.

Can the elite domestic competition offer something new this spring? Very difficult, or more precisely - it cannot, apart from the traditional uncertainty and tensions in the race for the title, placement in Europe and the fight for survival.

Because the autumn average of about 400 spectators per game, according to the data on the website of the Football Association of Montenegro, speaks of the interest and attractiveness of the competition, which has had a devastatingly bad reputation for years.

The UEFA table of national championships, where the Montenegrin championship is currently ranked second to last in Europe in terms of the performance of clubs in international competitions in the previous four seasons, speaks of the quality of that fight. Only the championship of San Marino is weaker, and ahead are Andorra, Gibraltar, Wales, Faroe Islands, Estonia, Georgia...

Montenegrin teams will therefore compete for only three, instead of the previous four, places in European competitions from Saturday, and the champion will play "qualifications for qualifications" for the Champions League at the end of June, almost without a break after the end of the championship.

It is a pre-qualification tournament in which our champion will compete with the champions of Iceland, San Marino and Andorra for one place in the 1st round of qualifications.

Furthermore, the fact that even three of the 10 first league teams will use alternative stadiums as home stadiums in the spring, they will host practically every match - Jezero, Arsenal and Dečić speaks volumes about the infrastructure and pitches on which the championship will continue.

Sutjeska is still waiting for the western stand, the reconstruction of which started a long time ago, for the new stadium in Cetinje, for which all possible deadlines have long been broken, and where the Cup final and some European matches could possibly be played, there is still no reliable information when could be completed.

With some currently second-league stadiums that are in better condition than many of the first-league ones (Berane, DG Arena, even Trešnjica - whatever it is), it is not an exaggeration, nor an understatement, but quite realistic, albeit cruel, to say: on Saturday, one of the of the weakest European football competitions in Europe.

Even so, football's backward competition, even by average European standards, often produces tension and nervousness - as if the stake is much higher than the several hundred thousand euros that UEFA distributes to the participants of its competitions.

Through the CFL, in previous years and somewhat more, not only the election race for the first man of the Football Association, which for the first time received a second candidate (frequent club announcements about "endangerment", two of the best referees who, temporarily or permanently, left whistle), but also political and even national tensions. It is enough to recall the events at the Petrovac - Jezero match at the end of October last year...

The ball, however, with all these "details", will continue to roll, and in May the 17th champion of independent Montenegro will be known.

It is very likely that it will not be a new name, because it is difficult to expect that Dečić, who is nine points behind, and who changed like Chelsea this winter (but on our micro level), and Petrovac, can threaten Budućnost and Sutjeska at the top .

The people of Podgorica and the people of Nikšić are the only real contenders for the throne with plus nine - and tied at the top. Their spring race for the title is also a fight for the status of the club with the most trophies in independent Montenegro, because both of them have five titles each, if that matters at all...

Tek, both Sutjeka and Budućnost, but also most of the other clubs, just like Dečić and Petrovac, at least tried to welcome the spring stronger - in terms of playing, and in some other sense. Whether that "strengthening" was done in the right football, planned and systemic way - is a big question.

In any case, the end of the autumn half-season and the start of preparations for the continuation were marked by the slightly pessimistic tones of the coaches of the two leading teams, Nenad Brnović and Miodrag Džudović. The first asked for reinforcements, the second regretted that his team was forced to spend the entire winter preparations on the Podgorica and Budva plastic (artificial pitches), instead of enjoying the benefits of Antalya.

However, after the players from Nikšić filled up the playing staff (Božo Marković returned in the attack, Dušan Živković, the offensive player of Rudar, arrived, Amir Bilali strengthened the defense), and especially the people from Podgorica (Marko Pavlovski, Filip Knežević, Balša Sekulić arrived, Petar Grbić returned ...) the end of the preparations took place in significantly more optimistic tones - both Brnović and Džudović.

The biggest problem of Dečić's new coach, Vladimir Gaćinović, will be how to play a team with so many new players in a short time (nine left, 12 players came), while the biggest handicap of the reinforced Petrovac (Adžović, Brnović and Malešević arrived, with the autumn team preserved) is actually the fact that Montenegro lost one place on the European stage compared to previous seasons.

Debutant Arsenal are on the edge of the teams fighting for Europe and survival, and everyone below is threatened. And everyone more or less stepped up: Unity, Miner, Jezero, and Sailor and Iskra - the two main candidates for direct relegation.