Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
5 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Lokomotiva Zagreb has to find a result from somewhere.
5 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
The offer from Istra 1961 for Marcel Lorber 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Lokomotiva Zagreb this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Francisco Palacios and Lokomotiva Zagreb agree another 3 years.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Lokomotiva Zagreb can pretend not to have heard.
Marko Vešović 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.
Squad4 Jan 2027
Marko Rog 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 phone has started ringing about Marcel Lorber again, and this time the name on the line is Istra 1961. Lokomotiva Zagreb are listening politely and promising nothing.
15 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Lokomotiva Zagreb lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
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.
4 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Lokomotiva Zagreb can tell you which week it ends in.
Borna Barišić 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.
Squad23 Nov 2026
Marko Rog 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.
19 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
17 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
42 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Lokomotiva Zagreb 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 Lokomotiva Zagreb, and it is not being withdrawn.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Player ratings2 Nov 2026
Up for the corner, and Marcel Lorber delivers — 7.62
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Marcel Lorber scored, was marked 7.62, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Marko Rog 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.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 21 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
Ibrahim Sabra, 20, plays like he has been here for years — 7.67
A mark of 7.67 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Lokomotiva Zagreb can pretend not to have heard.
4 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Lokomotiva Zagreb has to find a result from somewhere.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Lokomotiva Zagreb this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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 one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
The hardest thing about being 20 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Ibrahim Sabra did not need any: 8.12, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Borna Barišić 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 had been thinking. Leonardo Sigali 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.
At 20 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 no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
The name of Cheikh Mbacke Diop has come up in conversations Lokomotiva Zagreb were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Leonardo Sigali and Lokomotiva Zagreb agree another 2 years.
Marko Vešović 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.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Marko Rog 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.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Lokomotiva Zagreb, another week without a signature from Kauã Alves.
Still no offer on the table, and Tino Jukić’s deal keeps shrinking. In boardroom language, silence this long stops being an oversight and starts being an answer.
372 appearances across 8 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Lokomotiva Zagreb this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 17 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
36 months left and silence from upstairs — no offer, no talks, nothing for his people to answer. Clubs that let a calendar do their negotiating usually end up negotiating with the calendar.