25 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. HNK Gorica lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Lokomotiva Zagreb go through and HNK Gorica go home, 0‑1 the scoreline that did it. The dressing room will call the league the priority now, because that is what dressing rooms say.
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.
Ante Erceg 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.
Squad19 Mar 2029
Words at HNK Gorica training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jurica Pršir 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.
He is the name in every column and on every phone-in, which is a heavy thing to carry at any age. Some footballers thrive on it; others are quietly finished by it.
46 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. HNK Gorica lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
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 Gorica this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Successful dribbles: 21. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad13 Nov 2028
Words at HNK Gorica training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jurica Pršir 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.
He is the name in every column and on every phone-in, which is a heavy thing to carry at any age. Some footballers thrive on it; others are quietly finished by it.
88 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. HNK Gorica lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
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 Gorica this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad2 Oct 2028
Words at HNK Gorica training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jurica Pršir 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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. HNK Gorica know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
95 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. HNK Gorica lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“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 HNK Gorica, and it is not being withdrawn.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at HNK Gorica 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 HNK Gorica this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad25 Sep 2028
Iker Pozo 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.
The words a physio says slowly. 144 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.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Dominik Iskrić is 23, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
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 Gorica this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” HNK Gorica may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
The terraces10 Jan 2028
The boos come down from three sides
“We pay for this every fortnight. The least we want is somebody who looks like he cares.” 8 of the 39 senior players walked off into it; the rest were not playing.
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 Gorica this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad10 Jan 2028
Jurica Pršir 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.