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FK Novi Pazar host FK Čukarički on Sunday evening in the Mozzart Bet Superliga Championship Round, and both sides arrive with plenty still on the line. Novi Pazar sit fifth with 47 points, four clear of Čukarički in eighth, and the shape of the table gives this one real bite even without a title race attached. For Nenad Lalatović’s team, a home win would help protect that upper-half position and keep any outside European ambitions alive. For Marko Jaksic’s visitors, every point matters if they’re to close the gap and finish the spring with some pride.
The backdrop is pretty direct. Novi Pazar are trying to arrest a poor spell and rediscover the home spark that’s carried them through much of the season. Čukarički, by contrast, have become the league’s serial draw merchants, stubborn enough to stay hard to beat but not ruthless enough to turn that into a surge. Their recent meeting in March finished 1-1, and that kind of tight, scrappy contest feels very live again here.
Novi Pazar’s recent run has been ugly. There’s no dressing it up. They’ve gone six league games without a win and come into this one on the back of four straight defeats, with the latest setback a 2-0 loss away to Radnik Surdulica on 22 April. Before that, they were smashed 5-1 at home by OFK Beograd, a result that stung because it came on their own patch and exposed all the soft spots in the side. A narrow 3-2 defeat to Partizan at home wasn’t a disgrace, but it still left them empty-handed, and the 2-0 reverse at Železničar Pančevo told the same story: enough effort, not enough control.
The bigger issue is that their results have stopped matching the strength of their home record. At their ground this season, Novi Pazar have picked up 27 points from 16 matches, with eight wins, three draws and five defeats. They’ve scored 22 and conceded 23 at home, which is decent rather than dominant. Those numbers tell you they’re competitive in front of their own fans, but they’re not the sort of team who put games to bed early. When they get it right, they’re capable of clipping teams with energy and direct play. When they get it wrong, the goals against column starts to move too quickly.
That’s the problem Lalatović has to solve now. Novi Pazar haven’t kept a clean sheet in four and their last outing brought another defeat without much resistance once Radnik settled. They’ve also been wasteful in spells, especially when the pressure rises. Still, there’s enough in their home record to think they can cause Čukarički problems. This isn’t a side that folds every week. Three home points are there for the taking if they can sharpen up in both boxes. That’s the catch, of course. They haven’t looked sharp for a while.
Čukarički arrive without a defeat in six, but that unbeaten run has the odd feel of a side treading water. Four straight draws have slowed them down badly. Their most recent result was a 0-0 away to OFK Beograd on 22 April, a game they controlled well enough on paper — 13 shots to six, six on target to none — and still couldn’t turn that edge into a goal. Before that, they drew 2-2 at home with Radnik Surdulica after being held 0-0 by Radnički 1923, and they also left Partizan with a goalless draw. The only win in their last six came back on 21 March, a 3-2 home success over Železničar Pančevo. That feels like a long time ago now.
Away from home, Čukarički’s season has been ordinary. They’ve taken just 15 points from 16 away matches, with three wins, six draws and seven defeats. They’ve scored 16 and conceded 23 on the road, which is a blunt way of saying they don’t travel well enough. They can keep things respectable, sure, and the away draw at Partizan will have given them a lift, but they’ve also shown a clear reluctance to turn away performances into victories. Can they keep squeezing games into stalemates forever? Probably not.
Their strengths are obvious enough. They’re organised, awkward, and hard to break down once settled. That explains the six-match unbeaten streak. Still, the lack of punch is becoming a real issue. Three straight away blanks before the 2-2 with Radnik at home is no coincidence; they’re creating enough to stay alive in matches, but not enough to finish teams off. The good news for Jaksic is that they’re not collapsing. The bad news is that draws won’t lift them very far, and this trip to Novi Pazar looks like another match where they’ll have to work hard just to stay level.
This fixture has been tight for a long time. The last four meetings have all finished level, and three of them ended 1-1. Novi Pazar and Čukarički played out that scoreline in mid-March, the reverse fixture in October ended the same way, and the season before that brought another 1-1. Go back a little further and you find a 2-2 in Novi Pazar, a 2-0 Čukarički win, and a 1-0 home success for Novi Pazar. There’s no pattern of one side running away with it. There really isn’t.
The broader trend is even clearer: goals are usually at a premium, and neither side has been good enough to dominate the other for long. That matters here because both teams come in with questions in attack. Novi Pazar are on a winless stretch and Čukarički can’t stop drawing. When those two things meet, you don’t need much imagination to see another tight contest. The most common outcome between them lately has been a shared point. It’s hard to argue that away.
We’re backing FK Novi Pazar to win at 6/5 here. It’s not a banker, and nobody should pretend it is, but the home side have just enough going for them to edge a game that looks short of genuine firepower on both sides. Čukarički’s away record is poor enough to lean on, and their recent run of draws has been built on control without cutting edge. Novi Pazar have been shaky, yes, but they’ve still got a better home profile and should have more urgency in front of their own crowd.
A 2-1 home win feels the right call. That fits the xG projection well enough and it also keeps faith with the way this fixture usually behaves: competitive, awkward, and rarely settled by much. If you wanted a safer angle, under 2.5 goals is live too, given how often these teams have been dragged into low-scoring games against each other. Still, the direct play is Novi Pazar. They need it more, and on balance they’ve got the slightly stronger case.
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