Saša Obradović Fired as Crvena Zvezda Coach, Milan Tomić Takes Over Crvena zvezda’s season didn’t just derail on the court — it blew up on the bench. Days after a stinging derby collapse to Partizan, the club has moved from whispers of crisis to a full-blown bench overhaul, dumping coach Saša Obradović and rushing sports director Milan Tomić back to the frontline.

The spiral began in the wake of the heavy defeat to Partizan, a loss described as having “hurt everyone in Zvezda,” with management immediately opening talks about the coach’s future and even floating Tomić as a temporary fix for the KLS Final Four in Niš. Behind the scenes, those talks deepened late into the night after the semifinal and rolled into the next morning as the club scrambled for a way to salvage its last remaining trophy chance.

By late morning, pro-government outlets were already framing Obradović as “former” and asking who would replace him. Soon after, reports emerged that the answer was clear: following the “debacle against Partizan” and a “shameful performance at the press conference,” Obradović had been fired, with the news first pushed out by portal Direktno.

The internal verdict was brutal. Club leaders concluded it was “inevitable that Saša Obradović leave the club,” after he supposedly lost the locker room, the fans, and clashed with journalists through “shameful behavior” in front of the cameras. Another outlet echoed the same diagnosis: he had lost the backing of the dressing room and supporters, and his departure, under mounting pressure from all sides, “seemed like an inevitable outcome.”

Kurir pushed it further, calling it “the end of the story between Obradović and the red-and-whites,” confirming he is leaving with only the exact terms of separation left to negotiate — his second failed stint at his “beloved club.”

Into that mess steps Milan Tomić. Once again, he will lead Crvena zvezda, taking over the semifinal against Zlatibor and a possible final against the winner of Partizan–FMP, in what is portrayed as a short-term rescue mission to “finish the season and try to pull anything out of an already unsuccessful season.” He is a familiar figure, a past title-winning coach who “knows the team and the system well,” and part of the board believes his return to the bench could “jolt the team” before the last battle for silverware.

Yet even friendly media concede the failure runs deeper than one man. The team “collapsed at the key part of the season” and came up empty in both Euroleague and ABA, a burden pinned primarily on the coach — but not absolving highly paid players, either. Major changes are promised for the summer, but first, all eyes turn to Niš, where Tomić has a few days to turn a broken season into something slightly less disastrous.