Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Emanuel Mađarić 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.
Franko Bosančić 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.
100 games in this shirt, through managers and relegations and everything else. Service like it is disappearing from the game and the crowd knows what it is watching.
Marked 6.54 on 9 actions at both ends of the pitch. Midfielders like this get described as unspectacular by people who have never tried to play against one.
The dugout21 Dec 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 0‑1 Dario Babic left the room before anybody could ask which.
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager makes an example of Filip Musa
The dugoutAnte Žužul is still being punished for one mistake
At 19 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.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Radnik Krizevci can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Emanuel Mađarić 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Radnik Krizevci this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Radnik Krizevci told Aldiouma Diallo something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 36 arrived, 19 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $16.1K — a club that wants Roko Pavlović enough to be asked twice.
Radnik Krizevci offered $15.0K; Lokomotiva Zagreb 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 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 was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Radnik Krizevci this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
He is doing things on a Saturday afternoon that nobody around him can answer, which is flattering for about one season and a problem after that. Radnik Krizevci will not keep him by pretending otherwise.
“I have done everything asked of me in training and it has not changed a thing on a Saturday.” The most familiar complaint in football, and one Radnik Krizevci will have to answer with minutes or with a transfer.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Ivan Bastalec has, at Radnik Krizevci, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
Radnik Krizevci have gone to Lokomotiva Zagreb with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
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 supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑2, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Radnik Krizevci are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Karlo Lukman has just signed for Radnik Krizevci, and for once the answer mattered.
Everything agreed with another club, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
A 3‑1 win over Djakovo Croatia, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Karlo Darojković 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 particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Marin Budimir 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.
He is doing things every Saturday that nobody around him can answer. It is flattering for a season and a problem after that, and Radnik Krizevci 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 Radnik Krizevci, another week without a signature from Emanuel Mađarić.