The words a physio says slowly. 22 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.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at HNK Rijeka is saying, and nobody at Grobnican is enjoying the guessing.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Grobnican have done the hard part with NK Osijek, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
Grobnican asked and HNK Rijeka said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Matija Kanceljak trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Some transfers need a press campaign. This one needed a shirt with the old number on it. Matej Momčilovski is a Grobnican player again, and the town has its story of the summer.
Tonći Mujan 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.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Luka Miočić is living that version at Grobnican, and it tends to show in the first month.
He is doing things every Saturday that nobody around him can answer. It is flattering for a season and a problem after that, and Grobnican know which stage they are at.
Grobnican have made the call to Istra 1961. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
Tonći Mujan 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 Albert Kotlín was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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 Niko Farkaš is on 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 Grobnican, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 10 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
15 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Siem Askamp has just signed for Grobnican, and for once the answer mattered.
Borna Lesjak 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.
Niko Farkaš 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 Mar 2027
Words at Grobnican training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ivan Ikić 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.
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 Luka Šimunović is on it.
“It is not the end of the world and it is not good enough. Both of those are true.” The manager, after a 0‑0 draw, said the honest thing and then went to say it again inside.
Ninety specific minutes wanted a different sort of player, and the manager picked one. He is not out of form and he is not in the side, and both are true.
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.
Squad15 Feb 2027
Words at Grobnican training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ivan Ikić 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.
Segesta next, and the two sides the division is watching meet each other. Whoever wins will be told nothing is decided in the same breath as being congratulated.
Borna Lesjak 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.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Grobnican told Josip Krznarić something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
Some games turn on a moment; this one turned on a man. 7.54 on the card, and the Grobnican support went home talking about one name.
The dugout15 Feb 2027
The manager’s verdict
“I am not going to get carried away and I will not let them either. It was a good day. There will be harder ones.” Dino Sutalo kept it short after the 1‑0 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
In brief
The dugoutNiko Farkaš has become a man the manager trusts
Ninety minutes of very little, and then everything at once. The winner arrived in the 86th, and HNK Rijeka spent what remained of the match appealing to the referee rather than chasing the ball.
The hardest thing about being 20 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Niko Farkaš did not need any: 7.97, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
13 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
Niko Farkaš 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; Grobnican are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Grobnican asked and Rodina said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 20-year-old it feels ownership of. Niko Farkaš 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.
“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.
Boardroom1 Feb 2027
Deadline passes with 0 signed and 0 gone
That is the business done at Grobnican 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Grobnican this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 3 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Vllaznia Shkodër have kept their man, and Grobnican go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Squad1 Feb 2027
Words at Grobnican training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ivan Ikić 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.
Grobnican have made the call to Hajduk Split. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
In brief
Transfer targetsA loan move for Francisco Silva is in the works
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.06 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
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.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Marino Skelin is 20, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
11 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
Tonći Mujan 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.
Grobnican asked and Lech said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
2 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.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.99 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
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.
Niko Farkaš 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.
Successful dribbles: 16. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
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.
Hard to beat is not the same as winning, but 11 matches without defeat is a foundation Grobnican did not have in the autumn.
Player ratings19 Oct 2026
Niko Farkaš, 19, plays like he has been here for years — 7.61
A mark of 7.61 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 19-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Tonći Mujan 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.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 19 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.
The words a physio says slowly. 17 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.
Tonći Mujan 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.
Marked 7.74. Ask anyone leaving the ground what settled it and you will get one name, which is the only award that has ever really counted.
The dugout28 Sep 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am not going to get carried away and I will not let them either. It was a good day. There will be harder ones.” Dino Sutalo kept it short after the 1‑0 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
He wheeled away like a man who had been carrying it for months, because he had. Grobnican have their signing off the mark and one press-conference question retired.
13 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
Mladost Zdralovi next, and one man in the Grobnican dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
A 1‑0 win over Sesvete, a place in the next round, and the quiet arithmetic every supporter does on the walk home: how many more until a final?
Match19 Aug 2026
Maro Kosović wins it after the whistle should have gone
107 minutes played. Maro Kosović found the finish in time that only existed because of earlier delays, and Sesvete went from a point to nothing inside one movement.
Tonći Mujan 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Sesvete have kept their man, and Grobnican go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 20-year-old it feels ownership of. Maro Kosović 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.
The name of Luka Žeželić has come up in conversations Grobnican were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
In brief
Player ratingsNobody on the pitch touched Tonći Mujan