73 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Mladost Zdralovi lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Bruno Brajković and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad10 May 2027
Zoran Lesjak 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 respect the manager and I am not going to sit here and pretend I am happy.” It is the most common sentence in football and it has never once been the end of a story.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Mladost Zdralovi, and both men came out saying it was fine.
At 18 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Zoran Lesjak was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Mladost Zdralovi has been clear about where Mateo Jakšić stands, which is more than many ever get.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Mladost Zdralovi told Hadji Issa Moustapha something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
8 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.
Noel Bilić 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.
7 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Mladost Zdralovi and NK Varazdin in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Zoran Lesjak 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.
3 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Noel Bilić 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.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Dino Bjelica has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Marin Cop has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Martin Benko has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Bruno Brajković has just signed for Mladost Zdralovi, and for once the answer mattered.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at BSK Bijelo Brdo is saying, and nobody at Mladost Zdralovi is enjoying the guessing.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. NK Varazdin have kept their man, and Mladost Zdralovi go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Darijo Modric has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Mario Pjaca has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Hrvoje Bilic is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Dejan Kramaric is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Loren Maružin has, at Bjelovar, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
He left as a boy and has come back still knowing where the away end is. Most signings have to be explained to a town; this one needed a photograph and nothing else.
He is doing things every Saturday that nobody around him can answer. It is flattering for a season and a problem after that, and Bjelovar know which stage they are at.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Bjelovar, another week without a signature from Božidar Radošević.
14 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.
Bjelovar have made the call to Dugopolje. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
Dinamo Zagreb have been asked whether they would lend him. Loans are agreed quickly or not at all, and this one will be one or the other by the weekend.