“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 The request is on a desk at Dinamo Zagreb, and it is not being withdrawn.
The fee is $950.0K, the contract is signed, and the argument about whether he is worth it can begin. Lokomotiva Zagreb drove a hard bargain; time will say who won it.
The phone has started ringing about Gabriel Vidović again, and this time the name on the line is HNK Gorica. Dinamo Zagreb are listening politely and promising nothing.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Mirko Sušak has just signed for Dinamo Zagreb, and for once the answer mattered.
Squad26 Jun 2028
Taiyo Koga 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.
Ivan Nevistić 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.
19 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
In brief
The dugoutMohamed Camara has become a man the manager trusts
The dugoutIvan Nevistić asks for a word with the manager
BoardroomThe Dinamo Zagreb production line keeps running
He is going to NK Osijek, the club has $18.7M it did not have on Friday, and the phone-ins have already decided how they feel about that. Selling well and selling somebody they loved are not the same skill.
The offer went to Lokomotiva Zagreb this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Dinamo Zagreb heard it as anything else.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Dinamo Zagreb they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Dinamo Zagreb offered $1.0M; NK Osijek said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $1.1M — a club that wants Mirko Sušak enough to be asked twice.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Lokomotiva Zagreb will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
The name of Mirko Sušak has come up in conversations Lokomotiva Zagreb were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
“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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Thanasis Triantafyllou will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Lokomotiva Zagreb the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Mateo Bačić 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.
A loan enquiry to Nizhniy Novgorod: cover, or a look at somebody the club cannot afford to buy yet. Either way the answer will come back inside the week.
Lokomotiva Zagreb have made the call to Fenerbahce. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
It has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
21 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.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Lokomotiva Zagreb will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Nobody upstairs has said anything, which is the loudest thing they could do. Results buy silence in this game; the account at Lokomotiva Zagreb is running low.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Franjo Posavac will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Lokomotiva Zagreb the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Two or more conceded in each of the last 4 matches. It is not one mistake repeating itself, which would be the easier thing to fix; it is a different one every week.
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.
A bad atmosphere can be waited out. A group of people meeting afterwards to decide what to do about it cannot, and everybody in the building knows which stage this is.
“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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Franjo Posavac will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Lokomotiva Zagreb the goodbyes have quietly begun.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Lokomotiva Zagreb told Mirko Sušak something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
A change in the dugout is not one story, it is twenty-five of them. This is Josip Posavec's: he was somebody's player, and now he has to be somebody else's, starting from nothing.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Lokomotiva Zagreb is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Luka Dajčer and Lokomotiva Zagreb agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad17 Apr 2028
Medin Gashi 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 did not go to Bjelovar to sit and watch. I want to come back to Lokomotiva Zagreb and fight for my place.” 5 appearances in 32 matches say the rest.
Nobody at Lokomotiva Zagreb will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
Numbers do not stay secret in a dressing room and never have. He is not asking for more than he is worth; he is asking why somebody beside him is worth more, and at Lokomotiva Zagreb that is a harder question to answer.
3 kept out from twelve yards, and a stadium that will describe each of them for twenty years. A goalkeeper needs one night like this in a career, and this was it.
Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now is.
Cup ties wait for somebody to seize them, and Mirko Sušak obliged against NK Osijek. 2‑2 on the night, and the name in the next round’s hat is Lokomotiva Zagreb.
2 goals to the good, and then a slow surrender of everything that had been earned. Mirko Sušak will not be the one blamed for it, but nobody at Lokomotiva Zagreb escapes the conversation that follows a collapse like this.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Lokomotiva Zagreb will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Lokomotiva Zagreb have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Lokomotiva Zagreb is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
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.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Lokomotiva Zagreb 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 Lokomotiva Zagreb this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“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.
Squad13 Mar 2028
Medin Gashi 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 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 Lokomotiva Zagreb know it.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Marko Pajač is on it.
Numbers do not stay secret in a dressing room and never have. He is not asking for more than he is worth; he is asking why somebody beside him is worth more, and at Lokomotiva Zagreb that is a harder question to answer.
It has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
At 22 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Lokomotiva Zagreb is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Josip Posavec and Lokomotiva Zagreb agree another 3 years.
Mateo Bačić and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad6 Mar 2028
Medin Gashi 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.
12 goals in 30 games at Uskok — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Lokomotiva Zagreb updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Lokomotiva Zagreb told Josip Posavec something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
2‑3 against Feyenoord. Continental football is unforgiving about the things a domestic league lets a side get away with, and this was a night spent finding out which of those the club still has.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Lokomotiva Zagreb they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
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 ratings28 Feb 2028
Mirko Sušak was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.09. 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.
Ante Utrobičić 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.
A player who expected to start watched it instead. The manager will call it a decision for the team; Marcel Lorber will call it something else in private.
Successful dribbles: 16. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
The dugout28 Feb 2028
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 2‑3 Bojan Tadic left the room before anybody could ask which.
A shoot-out is remembered by its ending, and this one ends with Josip Posavec: 4 kept out, and a set of supporters who will describe every one of them for the next twenty years.
Cup ties wait for somebody to seize them, and Marko Rog obliged against Istra 1961. 1‑1 on the night, and the name in the next round’s hat is Lokomotiva Zagreb.
Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now is.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Lokomotiva Zagreb have lost him in all but the paperwork.
A deal that was a phone call from completion at lunchtime was dead by midnight. Lokomotiva Zagreb will try again when the window opens; Dinamo Zagreb may not be selling by then.
Boardroom7 Feb 2028
Deadline passes with 2 signed and 5 gone
That is the business done at Lokomotiva Zagreb until the window opens again. Whether it was enough will be answered on Saturdays rather than in a column, and the first Saturday is close.
The deal that would have taken Marko Batur to HNK Gorica has collapsed at the last stage, and he reports back to Lokomotiva Zagreb with a summer to forget and a season still to play. Nobody is saying which side walked away.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Lokomotiva Zagreb is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
“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.
There are footballers who have a good season and footballers a season is remembered for, and the second kind get their names read out in a hall in the summer. Lokomotiva Zagreb will be quietly delighted and privately nervous.
The name of Leon Grgić has come up in conversations Lokomotiva Zagreb were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
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.
Squad3 Jan 2028
Leon Grgić is the division's best young player this month
At 21 he has spent a month being better than everybody his age in the league, which is a different and harder thing than one good afternoon. Lokomotiva Zagreb will try very hard not to make too much of it.
“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.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Lokomotiva Zagreb they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
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.
Marko Rog 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.
0‑0 against Sturm Graz, under lights, against people who do not speak the same language as the crowd. These are the evenings a club measures its decade in, and there are never as many of them as anybody expects.
Position 8 and 13 points, and the table gets read bottom-up in this part of town. The calendar has stopped being a schedule and started being a countdown.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 6 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Gojko Jelić will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Lokomotiva Zagreb the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Marko Pajač was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Ante Utrobičić 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.
“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.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Lokomotiva Zagreb is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Oliver Heiðarsson and Lokomotiva Zagreb agree another 3 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad11 Oct 2027
Marko Batur 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.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
8 goals in 10 games at Cibalia — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Lokomotiva Zagreb updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Oliver Heiðarsson trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
2‑1 against Grasshopper, and a performance that will be described to people who were not there for the rest of the season. Leon Grgić was at the centre of the description.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Lokomotiva Zagreb they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Mario Šitum and Lokomotiva Zagreb agree another 2 years.
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.
Beaten 0‑1, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Squad4 Oct 2027
Marko Pajač 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.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Lokomotiva Zagreb they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Marko Pajač 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.
12 points at the turn. The first half of a season is a promise; the second is a bill, and the town is about to find out which of the two this one was.
The dugout27 Sep 2027
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 0‑2 Bojan Tadic left the room before anybody could ask which.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Lokomotiva Zagreb people have started saying his name in the past tense.
HNK Gorica paid $780.0K and Lokomotiva Zagreb took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
Lokomotiva Zagreb 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.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Trnje waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Lokomotiva Zagreb is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Leon Grgić did not need any: 7.78, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
The offer from Jadran Luka Ploce for Dario Cop 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.
Squad16 Aug 2027
Feta Fetai 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.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Radnik Krizevci waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Lokomotiva Zagreb is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
“It was not right for me. I am not going to explain why to anybody except the people I owe an explanation to.” A deal agreed between two clubs, and a player who declined to be part of it.
Lokomotiva Zagreb asked and Dinamo Moscow said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
200 times in these colours, in all weathers and under four or five different managers. That kind of service is quietly disappearing from the game.
Squad2 Aug 2027
Marko Pajač 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.
Fran Karačić 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 thought about how hard another man trains, and Ibrahim Sabra was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“I watch every Lokomotiva Zagreb game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Croatia Zmijavci runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Lokomotiva Zagreb, and both men came out saying it was fine.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Leon Grgić signs something — a contract at Lokomotiva Zagreb or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Position 4 on 26 points, and the places that carry a European ticket are close enough to count. Seasons like this are decided by two results in April, and the club knows which two.
Jakov-Anton Vasilj has done the arithmetic and does not like the answer. Nothing corrodes a squad faster, and no club has ever solved it by explaining the wage structure to a footballer.
Two goals and a mark of 8.73 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
4 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
Lokomotiva Zagreb ran out of time with Slaven Belupo. The paperwork was open when the deadline passed, and a transfer that was almost done is now a transfer that never happened.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Ibrahim Sabra was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Union SG have kept their man, and Lokomotiva Zagreb go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
“I watch every Lokomotiva Zagreb game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Hrvatski Dragovoljac runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
The deal with Slaven Belupo 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.
0 in and 3 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ibrahim Sabra 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Zenit have kept their man, and Lokomotiva Zagreb go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
“I watch every Lokomotiva Zagreb game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Grobnican runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
A deal that was a phone call from completion at lunchtime was dead by midnight. Lokomotiva Zagreb will try again when the window opens; Slaven Belupo may not be selling by then.
The paperwork is done long before the player is. Elvir Duraković has agreed terms to come here when his current deal runs out, which means Lokomotiva Zagreb have spent a summer's transfer budget on a phone call.
Squad18 Jan 2027
Ibrahim Sabra 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.
11 goals in 22 games at Kustosija — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Lokomotiva Zagreb updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Lokomotiva Zagreb told Mirko Sušak something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Mirko Marić is on it.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Tino Jukić trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
27 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Lokomotiva Zagreb lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Lokomotiva Zagreb have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Marko Vešović 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.
Beaten 1‑3, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Squad30 Nov 2026
Ibrahim Sabra 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.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Lokomotiva Zagreb told Marko Vešović something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
“I did not go to Trnje to sit and watch. I want to come back to Lokomotiva Zagreb and fight for my place.” 3 appearances in 12 matches say the rest.
The dugout30 Nov 2026
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 1‑3 Bojan Tadic left the room before anybody could ask which.