“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Jadran Dekani can pretend not to have heard.
There are footballers who have a good season and footballers a season is remembered for, and the second kind get their names read out in a hall in the summer. Jadran Dekani will be quietly delighted and privately nervous.
Stian Džumhur 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.
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 6 goals between Jadran Dekani and Nafta 1903, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Squad3 Jan 2028
Words at Jadran Dekani training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Maj Rorič 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.
4 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.
Maj Rorič 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.
Squad1 Nov 2027
Words at Jadran Dekani training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Dušan Ignjatović 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.
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.
100 games in the shirt. Nobody sets out to build a record like that; it happens to a certain kind of player at a certain kind of club, and this town knows what it has.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Jadran Dekani can pretend not to have heard.
Stian Džumhur 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 Dušan Ignjatović was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Edvin Krupić has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
Beltinci made Jadran Dekani work for it, but the scoreboard read 1‑0 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Squad13 Sep 2027
8 new faces, and Jadran Dekani are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 1‑0, Sandi Ilicic could afford to be generous.
“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 Jadran Dekani, and it is not being withdrawn.
“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.
Boardroom6 Sep 2027
Deadline passes with 20 signed and 4 gone
That is the business done at Jadran Dekani until the window opens again. Whether it was enough will be answered on Saturdays rather than in a column, and the first Saturday is close.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Joachim Van Damme and Jadran Dekani agree another 2 years.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Brinje Grosuplje have kept their man, and Jadran Dekani go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Squad6 Sep 2027
Words at Jadran Dekani training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Maj Rorič 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.
“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.
Boardroom6 Sep 2027
112% of the income goes out in wages at Jadran Dekani
Every club in football pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time somebody has tried it.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Arkadiusz Woźniak and Jadran Dekani agree another 2 years.
Squad3 May 2027
Maj Rorič 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 Miha Špernjak trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
“I respect the manager and I am not going to sit here and pretend I am happy.” It is the most common sentence in football and it has never once been the end of a story.
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 Sandi Brekalo is on it.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Maj Rorič signs something — a contract at Jadran Dekani or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Nemanja Gavrić 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Maj Rorič was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Squad12 Apr 2027
6 new faces, and Jadran Dekani are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
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 Patrik Šantalab is on it.