Mislav Oršić 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.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Scott McKenna 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.
19 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.
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
9 attempts, none of them in. He got into the right places all afternoon, which is the hard part, and did the easy part badly — and that is the version of a bad day a manager can live with.
The crowd waited for a goal that never came. HNK Gorica defended in numbers and left with what they came for, and the two sides could be playing still without troubling a scorer.
The shape wanted a different profile against this opponent, which is a real football answer and no comfort at all to the man it is about. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
90 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Hrvatski Dragovoljac lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.06 at 34, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Marcos Gómez. 3‑1 against Lucko, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
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.
At 21 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Hrvatski Dragovoljac this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Marko Zebić 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 month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Marcos Gómez is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
Ninety minutes of very little, and then everything at once. The winner arrived in the 87th, and NK Varazdin spent what remained of the match appealing to the referee rather than chasing the ball.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Up for the corner, and Scott McKenna delivers — 7.95
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Scott McKenna scored, was marked 7.95, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
Mislav Oršić 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 one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
At 18 he is being measured against the rest of the division's kids and coming out in front. The senior version of this award is where the club would like this to lead.
Antonio Jakoliš 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.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Hrvatski Dragovoljac, and both men came out saying it was fine.