Marked for Leon Borković
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market21 Jun 2027
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Zeleznicar Pancevo can pretend not to have heard.
Squad21 Jun 2027
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Zeleznicar Pancevo this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad21 Jun 2027
Leon Borković is a better footballer than he was
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 23 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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad8 Feb 2027
There were 6 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Market8 Feb 2027
“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.
Squad8 Feb 2027
Marko Konatar 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.
Squad8 Feb 2027
Sylvester Jasper 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.
Squad8 Feb 2027
The manager makes an example of Nikola Đuričić
“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.
Match6 Feb 2027
Beaten 0‑1, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Player ratings8 Feb 2027
Successful dribbles: 15. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Market8 Feb 2027
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Sylvester Jasper’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.
Player ratings8 Feb 2027
Marked 5.68. Nothing he attempted worked and by the hour mark he had stopped attempting much, which is the part a manager notices rather than the mistakes.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match23 Jan 2027
Mladost Lucani will want this one forgotten quickly: 3‑0, every duel lost, and a long ride home. Zeleznicar Pancevo were ruthless in the way good sides are ruthless.
Market25 Jan 2027
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Zeleznicar Pancevo can pretend not to have heard.
Player ratings25 Jan 2027
Dušan Jovanović, 20, plays like he has been here for years — 7.78
A mark of 7.78 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.
Player ratings25 Jan 2027
At 36 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 7.95 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Squad25 Jan 2027
“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.
Squad25 Jan 2027
Marko Konatar 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.
Squad25 Jan 2027
Sylvester Jasper 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 terraces25 Jan 2027
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 20-year-old it feels ownership of. Dušan Jovanović 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.
Squad25 Jan 2027
“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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market4 Jan 2027
The bid was some way short and Zeleznicar Pancevo did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Market4 Jan 2027
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Zeleznicar Pancevo can pretend not to have heard.
Player ratings4 Jan 2027
Successful dribbles: 23. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad4 Jan 2027
Zoran Popović 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.
Market4 Jan 2027
Both sides expect a conversation in the coming days. Zeleznicar Pancevo will name a price, and everything after that is arithmetic.
Squad4 Jan 2027
João Fernandes gets the move he always wanted
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. João Fernandes has just signed for Zeleznicar Pancevo, and for once the answer mattered.
Squad4 Jan 2027
Miloš Kosanović 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.
Squad4 Jan 2027
The medical room confirms 57 days on the sidelines for Nikola Jovanović, and a plan built around him now has to be rebuilt.
Player ratings4 Jan 2027
Ninety minutes of David Ankeye at his very best
Marked 8.06. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Zeleznicar Pancevo.