Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Albie Morgan will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around NK Varazdin the goodbyes have quietly begun.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Hajduk Split in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
15 points from position 4. The title is somebody else’s business and the drop is somebody else’s problem; what is left is the argument about passports.
“I did not come here to warm up in front of people.” He is out of contract eventually, he is old enough to count the weeks, and NK Varazdin will have to give him a reason to stay or an exit.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at NK Varazdin, another week without a signature from Marko Bakić.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what NK Varazdin can pretend not to have heard.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Novak Tepšić will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around NK Varazdin the goodbyes have quietly begun.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at NK Varazdin this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Gregor Sikošek was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.
“They were honest with me, and I would rather know.” Iván Balliu has been informed he is not in the manager's thinking at NK Varazdin.
The dugout9 Oct 2028
Novak Tepšić is still being punished for one mistake
Nobody will confirm it and the team sheets confirm it every week. One error has bought him a spell as second choice that is already longer than the error deserved.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what NK Varazdin can pretend not to have heard.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at NK Varazdin is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 7 goals between NK Varazdin and Slaven Belupo, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at NK Varazdin can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Matej 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.
In brief
Player ratingsNinety minutes of Stipe Jurić at his very best
The dugoutThe manager makes an example of Matej Vuk
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around NK Varazdin they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
The deal that would have taken Silvio Ilinković to Croatia Zmijavci has collapsed at the last stage, and he reports back to NK Varazdin with a summer to forget and a season still to play. Nobody is saying which side walked away.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at CSKA Moscow is saying, and nobody at NK Varazdin is enjoying the guessing.
Matej 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.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at NK Varazdin can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
The dugout11 Sep 2028
The manager has not finished forgetting Franko Kolić's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and HNK Vukovar 1991 waiting with a shirt. Nobody at NK Varazdin is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
He is going to Urawa Reds, the club has $1.7M it did not have on Friday, and the phone-ins have already decided how they feel about that. Selling well and selling somebody they loved are not the same skill.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” NK Varazdin have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
NK Varazdin asked and Zenit said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Caio Cruz and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
At 36, 3 points below where he was, and a body that has started charging interest. It happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph on this page.
Rüfət Abdullazadə has gone, the accounts have $1.4M in them, and the supporters have the feeling of having been sold something themselves. Good business and a good decision are not always the same thing.
Istra 1961 paid $1.4M and NK Varazdin took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
The phone has started ringing about Vito Težak again, and this time the name on the line is Jadran Luka Ploce. NK Varazdin are listening politely and promising nothing.
Squad17 Jul 2028
Words at NK Varazdin training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Gregor Sikošek 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at NK Varazdin this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Dinamo Zagreb have been asked whether they would lend him. Loans are agreed quickly or not at all, and this one will be one or the other by the weekend.
Garang Kuol and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
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 Luka Mamić trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Karlo Žiger has written the date down.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Roko Domjanić will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around NK Varazdin the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Roko Jurišić was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Matej Vuk and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Robby McCrorie is on it.
“I have done everything asked of me in training and it has not changed a thing on a Saturday.” The most familiar complaint in football, and one NK Varazdin will have to answer with minutes or with a transfer.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Aleksa Latković signs something — a contract at NK Varazdin or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
“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.
Squad27 Mar 2028
Words at NK Varazdin training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Franjo Prce 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.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at NK Varazdin, and both men came out saying it was fine.
The words a physio says slowly. 19 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.
Matej 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.
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and NK Varazdin know it.
Nobody at NK Varazdin will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Marcel Złomańczuk was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at NK Varazdin, and both men came out saying it was fine.
26 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. NK Varazdin lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at NK Varazdin is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad21 Feb 2028
Words at NK Varazdin training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Roko Jurišić 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.
6 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Robby McCrorie is on it.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Aleksa Latković signs something — a contract at NK Varazdin or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
34 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. NK Varazdin lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
“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 NK Varazdin, 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 NK Varazdin this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Roko Jurišić was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Roko Jurišić is on it.
Marko Bakić is 34 and has run out of things to prove. What he has left is where to stand, when to slow it down and what to say at half-time, and none of that is on a fitness chart.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. NK Varazdin know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
41 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. NK Varazdin lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
A shoot-out is remembered by its ending, and this one ends with Robby McCrorie: 2 kept out, and a set of supporters who will describe every one of them for the next twenty years.
It is a specific kind of quiet, a ground watching a winning position dissolve. Dinamo Zagreb kept coming because nothing stopped them, and NK Varazdin will be asked about the last half hour all week.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around NK Varazdin people have started saying his name in the past tense.
7.60, 1 on the scoresheet, and the specific comedy of a back-four player celebrating like somebody who does this every week. He does not, and that is exactly why the ground reacted the way it did.
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Boardroom7 Feb 2028
NK Varazdin close the window on a squad of their own making
5 in and 2 out, and no more changes for months. The manager has what he has, the supporters have their opinion of it, and the table will have the last word.
The words a physio says slowly. 49 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what NK Varazdin can pretend not to have heard.
Garang Kuol and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Roko Jurišić was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Dugopolje have kept their man, and NK Varazdin go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at NK Varazdin can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Everyone has stopped pretending: Opatija will make the call about Roko Domjanić this week. NK Varazdin have a number in mind, and the number is not shy.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Tomislav Duvnjak trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Nobody at NK Varazdin will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
The words a physio says slowly. 56 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.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” NK Varazdin have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Garang Kuol 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 Jan 2028
Words at NK Varazdin training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Roko Jurišić 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.
NK Varazdin asked and Trnje said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Aleksa Latković signs something — a contract at NK Varazdin or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Roko Domjanić is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Aleksa Latković 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.
He is 23 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
Successful dribbles: 19. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
Somebody has moved past him. It is not a dropping and it is worse than one, because a dropping is about a Saturday and this is about where he stands.
The dugout6 Dec 2027
The manager’s verdict
“I am not going to get carried away and I will not let them either. It was a good day. There will be harder ones.” Niko Perisic kept it short after the 2‑0 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” NK Varazdin have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Luka Mamić, and the manager let it.
The dugout22 Nov 2027
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 2‑3 defeat, delivered by Niko Perisic to a room that had heard them before.
He found out with everybody else, an hour before kick-off, from a sheet of paper on a wall. Nobody at NK Varazdin pretended it was anything other than a decision about him.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Roko Jurišić’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and NK Varazdin needing him to play as if none of it matters.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. NK Varazdin know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Position 2, 12 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. NK Varazdin have lost him in all but the paperwork.
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.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. NK Varazdin have done the hard part with NK Osijek, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; NK Varazdin are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around NK Varazdin people have started saying his name in the past tense.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at NK Varazdin 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 NK Varazdin, and it is not being withdrawn.
NK Varazdin asked and Sesvete said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
NK Varazdin have made the call to Crvena Zvezda. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
Nobody at NK Varazdin will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at NK Varazdin. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
94 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. NK Varazdin lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Matej Vuk and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
24 games, 13 goals, and a squad option that has arrived without a fee attached. The interesting question at NK Varazdin now is not whether he plays but who he displaces.
6 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
0 appearances, 0 clean sheets, and a goalkeeper no further forward than the day he left. Whether that belongs to him, to the club that borrowed him or to the people who arranged it is the argument NK Varazdin will have this month.
0 appearances, 0 clean sheets, and a goalkeeper no further forward than the day he left. Whether that belongs to him, to the club that borrowed him or to the people who arranged it is the argument NK Varazdin will have this month.
102 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. NK Varazdin lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” NK Varazdin have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around NK Varazdin they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at NK Varazdin can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
24 games, 13 goals, and a squad option that has arrived without a fee attached. The interesting question at NK Varazdin now is not whether he plays but who he displaces.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at NK Varazdin this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“There is a gap, and pretending there is not helps nobody.” Neither side has moved, and the calendar is working for exactly one of them.
Market1 Mar 2027
Domagoj Mamić returns from a loan that taught him nothing
0 appearances and 0 clean sheets. A goalkeeper learns his job by playing it, and a season that gave him neither the games nor the shut-outs is a year taken off the front of a career.
42 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. NK Varazdin lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 6 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Joel Roca 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.
NK Varazdin asked and Krasnodar said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
“I watch every NK Varazdin game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Uljanik Pula runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
The name of Luka Posinković has come up in conversations NK Varazdin were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason NK Varazdin will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Match15 Dec 2026
Ivan Mamut wins it after the whistle should have gone
117 minutes played. Ivan Mamut found the finish in time that only existed because of earlier delays, and Istra 1961 went from a point to nothing inside one movement.
“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 NK Varazdin, and it is not being withdrawn.
1 for Elvir Duraković, marked 7.98, and a centre-half's name in the part of the report he normally only reaches by mistake. He will not be allowed to forget it in the dressing room for a month.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 21 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.
An error at the back is a moment; an error in goal is a goal. Josip Silić knows it, the crowd knew it instantly, and there was nobody behind him to make it anything else.