Dino Kovačec 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.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Solin can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Dino Kovačec 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.
Sten Teunissen 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 Solin know it.
Every club 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 it has been tried.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Solin. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Ivan Ikić trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Position 10 on 40 points. Every season is a story and this is the last line of it, and now the club has three months to decide what the next one is about.
Player ratings6 Mar 2028
Šime Perko, 20, plays like he has been here for years — 7.77
A mark of 7.77 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 20-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Solin 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 Solin this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Everybody saw it before anybody said it. At 34 the numbers say 3 points down on what he was, and the question for Solin is how to handle a man they owe a great deal.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 20-year-old it feels ownership of. Šime Perko 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.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Solin will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
7 saves, and a scoreline the ten men in front of him had no right to. Goalkeepers only get noticed on the bad days; this was one of the other ones.
Player ratings29 Nov 2027
Daniil Pylypchuk, 18, plays like he has been here for years — 7.83
A mark of 7.83 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 18-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Solin have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Dino Kovačec was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
At 19 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.
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.
Everything was agreed until it was not, and Ivan Carev reports back to Solin with a summer to forget. Neither club is saying who walked away from the table.
Squad30 Aug 2027
Dino Kovačec 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.
Sten Teunissen 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.
“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; Solin are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑1, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
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.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Solin will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Boardroom1 Feb 2027
Solin close the window on a squad of their own making
3 in and 0 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.
Solin asked and Mlada Boleslav said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Squad1 Feb 2027
Karlo Valjan 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.