Red Star's European story began in 1956–57 season with match in Kerkrade, Netherlands. The first rival in the first round of the 1956–57 European Cup were Dutch champions Rapid JC (the club later changed its name to Roda JC), with Bora Kostić scoring Red Star's first ever European goal. Since the first European Cup semi-final, when Red Star was eliminated by Fiorentina, Red Star participated 14 times in a European competition quarter-final (not counting the Mitropa Cup), and was a semi-finalist in each of the three UEFA competitions for a total of six appearances. Throughout this time, Red Star steadily kept its place among the top 15 European clubs on UEFA's ranking list, situated just behind Real Madrid and Barcelona for the number of season participations in European Cups.[2] In 1991, Red Star finally won the 1991 European Cup, in a game against Marseille.
From 1992 to 1995, the clubs from FR Yugoslavia were forbidden to take part in the European competitions, due to the sanctions against Yugoslavia. For two decades after 1995, Red Star has only made two group stage appearances of the second-tier competition UEFA Cup, in 2005–06 and 2007–08.
The following data indicates Red Star coefficient rankings.[5]
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