After three days of work on preparations in Slovenia, the players of Vojvodina will play their first friendly match today. From 6 pm in Slovenske Konjice, the rival of the red and whites will be Borac Banja Luka, with which the Old Lady has been cultivating cordial brotherly relations for decades.
Borac Banja Luka was founded on July 4, 1926, and is therefore one of the oldest clubs in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and was founded by sales assistants who believed that by forming the club they would be able to better and more efficiently fight for their workers’ rights. Thus, the original name of Borac was the workers’ sports club Borac.
In its history, the popular Platonova’s Great has won two Bosnian champion titles (2011 and 2021), one Yugoslav Cup (1988), one Bosnian Cup (2010) and one Central European Cup (1992). Last season, the team from Banja Luka finished in third place in the Bosnian Premier League, and this season they have great ambitions and a desire to decorate their showcases with another championship cup. As hosts, they play at the City Stadium in Banja Luka with a capacity of 9,730 seats and perform at home in red-blue-white, and away in blue-white equipment.
Vojvodina and Borac have met a total of 35 times so far, and the Old Lady is more successful with 17 wins, 11 draws and seven defeats, with a goal difference of 46-31. Borac and Voša played their first match in the 1961/62 season in the then First Federal League of Yugoslavia, when Vojvodina won 0-1 in Banja Luka, and the last time the two fraternal clubs met was also in Banja Luka in the 2019/20 season, when a friendly match of a humanitarian nature ended in a 1-1 draw. Borac then took the lead with a goal by Jakupović in the 63rd minute, and Vojvodina equalized with a goal by Nikola Drinčić in the 86th minute.
As of this summer, the Manager of Borac is the well-known Nenad Lalatović, who was the coach of Vojvodina on two occasions, whose history he entered by winning the Serbian Cup in 2020 and the fact that he became the coach with most victories in the history of the Old Lady. As in previous clubs, he is assisted in his work by assistant coaches Dragan Šarac and Vidak Bratić and goalkeeper coach Milan Jovanić, who work with a team whose value is estimated at around 5.51 million euros.
The Borac team also includes several former Vojvodina players, including Dejan Meleg, Luka Cucin, Momčilo Mrkaić, Nikola Andrić and Milan Spremo, and football fans in Serbia also know former Partizan players Goran Zakarić and Aleksandar Subić.
As for the team of Vojvodina, Milan Rastavac’s team currently has several players with minor injuries, so it is uncertain in which lineup the red and whites will play. What is certain is that the match will be broadcast live on Novosadska Television, and all fans of both clubs and other football fans will be able to watch the match on the Youtube channel of FK Vojvodina via the link:
