Marked for Đorđe Jovanović
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad14 Sep 2026
Sandro Trémoulet damages knee ligaments — 43 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 43 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.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 23. 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.
Market14 Sep 2026
IMT come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Radnik Surdulica did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Transfer targets14 Sep 2026
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Crvena Zvezda have kept their man, and Radnik Surdulica go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Match12 Sep 2026
A 2‑1 win over Cukaricki, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
The terraces14 Sep 2026
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.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
Vukašin Bogdanović was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.52. 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 dugout14 Sep 2026
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Nikola Babic on a 2‑1 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
The dugout14 Sep 2026
The manager makes an example of Borko Duronjić
“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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Match29 Aug 2026
Javor-Matis will want this one forgotten quickly: 3‑0, every duel lost, and a long ride home. Radnik Surdulica were ruthless in the way good sides are ruthless.
Market31 Aug 2026
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Two goals and a mark of 9.12 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Market31 Aug 2026
The offer from Radnicki 1923 for Đorđe Jovanović was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Transfer targets31 Aug 2026
The deal with Radnicki Nis is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
Transfer targets31 Aug 2026
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.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Ninety minutes of Sandro Trémoulet at his very best
Marked 8.31. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Radnik Surdulica.
The dugout31 Aug 2026
“That is what I want every week. Not the result, the way they went about it.” The manager, after 3‑0, already talking about the next one.
The dugout31 Aug 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Mlađan Stevanović, and the manager let it.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market17 Aug 2026
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Radnicki 1923 waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Radnik Surdulica is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Transfer targets17 Aug 2026
No thanks: Kauã Elias rejects the move
Radnik Surdulica had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Shakhtar, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
Market17 Aug 2026
The offer from Spartak Subotica for Luka Puzović was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Words at Radnik Surdulica training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Sandro Trémoulet 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.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Rafael Pontelo 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.
Transfer targets17 Aug 2026
Panathinaikos 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.
Transfer targets17 Aug 2026
A loan enquiry to Dinamo Zagreb: cover, or a look at somebody the club cannot afford to buy yet. Either way the answer will come back inside the week.
Transfer targets17 Aug 2026
A loan enquiry to PAOK: cover, or a look at somebody the club cannot afford to buy yet. Either way the answer will come back inside the week.
The dugout17 Aug 2026
The view from the dugout
“We did not lose. Some weeks that is all you get, and I would rather have the point than not.” Nikola Babic chose the glass-half-full version of 0‑0; the supporters left with the other one.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market10 Aug 2026
The bid was some way short and Radnik Surdulica did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Transfer targets10 Aug 2026
Radnik Surdulica asked and Sparta Prague said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Squad10 Aug 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Radnik Surdulica this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The terraces10 Aug 2026
At 23 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
Match8 Aug 2026
A 2‑0 win over Zeleznicar Pancevo, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Market10 Aug 2026
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Stefan Nastasic has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
Market10 Aug 2026
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Sasa Rajkovic is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Market10 Aug 2026
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Vladimir Mitrovic has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad3 Aug 2026
140 appearances across 9 seasons in one shirt. Nobody builds a career like that on purpose any more; it happens to a certain kind of footballer at a certain kind of club.
Squad3 Aug 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Radnik Surdulica this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match1 Aug 2026
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 6 goals between Radnik Surdulica and Partizan, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
Match1 Aug 2026
2‑4 to Partizan, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Words at Radnik Surdulica training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Sandro Trémoulet 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.
Market3 Aug 2026
“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.
Market3 Aug 2026
Still no offer on the table, and Đorđe Jovanović’s deal keeps shrinking. In boardroom language, silence this long stops being an oversight and starts being an answer.
The dugout3 Aug 2026
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 2‑4 defeat, delivered by Nikola Babic to a room that had heard them before.