“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Segesta have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
5 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 23 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Segesta this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
At 24 the improving is meant to be over. It is not: 3 points better than the mark taken at the start of the year, which is the sort of thing that happens to players who take the boring parts of the job seriously.
Marko Lukic is 18, and Segesta have signed him for the player he will be rather than the one he is. The first team can wait; the point of a deal like this is the years it buys.
48 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Segesta lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Wages have outrun income and the accountants have started attending meetings they used to send apologies to. Ambition comes second in a season like this.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Segesta, and it is not being withdrawn.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 22 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Leonard Vuk was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
1 months left, and both sides know what that means: every week without a signature, the fee Segesta could ask drops and the wages Leonard Vuk can ask rise.
Marked 5.71. Nothing he attempted worked and by the hour mark he had stopped attempting much, which is the part a manager notices rather than the mistakes.
The words a physio says slowly. 86 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Segesta is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Segesta, and it is not being withdrawn.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Segesta is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Segesta this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad29 May 2028
Words at Segesta training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Sekou Sanogo is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Wages have outrun income and the accountants have started attending meetings they used to send apologies to. Ambition comes second in a season like this.
Leonard Vuk was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Squad24 Apr 2028
Dino Špehar falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Wages have outrun income and the accountants have started attending meetings they used to send apologies to. Ambition comes second in a season like this.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Segesta, and it is not being withdrawn.
Marko Mikulić was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
In brief
SquadWords at Segesta training over how hard people work
Marko Mikulić was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Wages have outrun income and the accountants have started attending meetings they used to send apologies to. Ambition comes second in a season like this.
Squad28 Feb 2028
Dino Špehar falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Oladoye Ezekiel trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
It has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Segesta can pretend not to have heard.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Segesta this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Segesta, and it is not being withdrawn.
Marko Mikulić was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Squad23 Aug 2027
Words at Segesta training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ivan Kapac is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
The board had gone up, the arguing had started, and then the ball was in the net in the 91th minute. Sibenik will replay every second of the added time for a week.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Player ratings16 Aug 2027
Up for the corner, and Éric Chardey delivers — 7.46
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Éric Chardey scored, was marked 7.46, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Segesta this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad16 Aug 2027
Words at Segesta training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Dino Špehar is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
20 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
Marko Mikulić was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Position 8 and 19 points, and the table gets read bottom-up in this part of town. The calendar has stopped being a schedule and started being a countdown.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Segesta, and it is not being withdrawn.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Segesta this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Segesta will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Position 8 and 19 points, and the table gets read bottom-up in this part of town. The calendar has stopped being a schedule and started being a countdown.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Segesta can pretend not to have heard.
Marko Mikulić was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
38 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. HNK Vukovar 1991 lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” HNK Vukovar 1991 have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at HNK Vukovar 1991 this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Player ratings11 Jan 2027
Alan Martínez was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.01. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Jakov Biljan has his answer from HNK Vukovar 1991; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Segesta will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Segesta can pretend not to have heard.
Marko Mikulić was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Add another name to the list: HNK Vukovar 1991 have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Éric Chardey. The answer from Segesta has not changed — yet.