Nair Tiknizyan and Crvena Zvezda held out against Celtic in the Europa League

On September 24 in Belgrade, Crvena Zvezda and Celtic shared the points in the first round of the Europa League league stage — 1:1.

The Scots opened the scoring in the 55th minute through Kelechi Iheanacho. However, the hosts quickly restored parity: in the 65th minute, after a corner won by Nair Tiknizyan, Marko Arnautović equalized.

Armenian national team defender Nair Tiknizyan played the full 90 minutes on the left side of Belgrade’s defense. He actively joined the attack, made overlapping runs, and in one moment, after a pass from Arnautović, nearly scored himself.

It should be recalled that before this game, Nair Tiknizyan received Serbian citizenship.

Tiknizyan’s match statistics:

• Minutes played: 90+
• Accurate passes: 24 (83%)
• Successful dribbles: 1/2
• Shots: 1
• Duels won: 1/6
• Aerial duels won: 1/1
• Ball losses: 10
• Fouls: 2
• Yellow cards: 1
• Clearances: 1
• Interceptions: 2
• SofaScore rating: 6.0

The next match for Crvena Zvezda will be on October 2 in Portugal against Porto.

Europa League 2025/26 group stage, Matchday 1 results:

• Midtjylland – Sturm 2:0

• PAOK – Maccabi Tel Aviv 0:0

• Crvena Zvezda – Celtic 1:1

• Dinamo Zagreb – Fenerbahçe 3:1

• Malmö – Ludogorets 1:2

• Nice – Roma 1:2

• Real Betis – Nottingham Forest 2:2

• Freiburg – Basel 2:1

• Braga – Feyenoord 1:0