Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Dugopolje will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 20 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.
Zoran Nižić 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.
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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. HNK Gorica have kept their man, and Dugopolje go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Dugopolje have made the call to NK Varazdin. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Dugopolje, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Ante Utrobičić was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“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 Dugopolje know it.
In brief
BoardroomWages eat 145% of everything Dugopolje earn
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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Dugopolje know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
24 points from position 6. The title is somebody else’s business and the drop is somebody else’s problem; what is left is the argument about passports.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Matic Verbic is living that version at Dugopolje, and it tends to show in the first month.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Dugopolje this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Ante Utrobičić was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Marin Karabatić, and the manager let it.
The dugout7 Dec 2026
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 0‑1 defeat, delivered by Mato Erceg to a room that had heard them before.
In brief
The dugoutNo place for Matic Verbic on the big day
Every club in football 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 somebody has tried it.
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.
He found out with everybody else, an hour before kick-off, from a sheet of paper on a wall. Nobody at Dugopolje pretended it was anything other than a decision about him.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 1‑2, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
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.
Marko Maučec 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.
Sibenik next, and one man in the Dugopolje dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
Position 6, 20 points, and a run-in that decides whether next season has Thursday nights in it. Nobody is calling it a race yet, which is what people say during one.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Vall Janković trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
The shrug has gone, the language is coming, and he now argues in training like somebody who expects to be here next year. Half a signing's value is this and none of it appears on a fee.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: another club keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Dugopolje 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.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Dugopolje has been clear about where Marko Maučec stands, which is more than many ever get.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 7 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Ante Utrobičić was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
13 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.
The dugout26 Oct 2026
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 1‑2 defeat, delivered by Mato Erceg to a room that had heard them before.
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
Nobody at Dugopolje is suggesting he is out of form. The manager simply wanted somebody with a different set of qualities for ninety specific minutes, and there is nothing a player can train to fix that.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Dugopolje. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
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.
It happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph a local paper has to write. 34 years old, 3 points down on where he was, and a body that has started charging interest on a career.
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.
Vall Janković 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.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Mato Erceg after the 0‑0 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
Ninety minutes, no goals, and the argument started before the car park emptied: a point gained, or two thrown away against Sesvete? Both sides of it will still be going on Thursday.
Position 2, 18 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Dugopolje this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Marko Maučec was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Dugopolje are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
Sesvete next, and one man in the Dugopolje dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Bruno Zdunić signs something — a contract at Dugopolje or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
First, on 18 points. The table is a fact and a fact is allowed to be enjoyed, which is as far as anybody at the club is prepared to go in public.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
Ante Utrobičić, 20, plays like he has been here for years — 7.62
A mark of 7.62 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.
Dominik Balić 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.
Imotski made Dugopolje work for it, but the scoreboard read 1‑0 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Words at Dugopolje training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Marin Karabatić 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 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.
The dugout28 Sep 2026
The view from the dugout
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” Mato Erceg, on a 1‑0 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
Dugopolje and Zadar have settled on $58.0K. The rest belongs to the player and his agent, and a supporter who has watched one of these before knows not to buy the shirt yet.
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 19 arrived, 2 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
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.
1 for Dominik Balić, marked 7.85, and a centre-half's name in the part of the report he normally only reaches by mistake. He will not be allowed to forget it in the dressing room for a month.
Add another name to the list: Imotski have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Josip Bartulić. The answer from Dugopolje has not changed — yet.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Dominik Balić. 1‑0 against Sesvete, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Ante Utrobičić was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Dugopolje, another week without a signature from Dominik Balić.