The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Dinamo Zagreb is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Ivan Paunović is 18, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
“I watch every Dinamo Zagreb game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Cibalia runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
Nobody at Dinamo Zagreb will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Florian Kastenmeier trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
A year in and the language has not come, the city has not opened up, and he eats alone more often than anybody at Dinamo Zagreb would like to admit. It is showing on Saturdays.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Dinamo Zagreb know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
In brief
Loan watchThe goals keep arriving from Sven Šunta’s exile
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Mohamed Abo Fani was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Alfonso Barco 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.
“I watch every Dinamo Zagreb game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at NK Varazdin runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
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 Mohamed Abo Fani is on it.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Dinamo Zagreb know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around NK Varazdin they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Matej Vuk 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.
Squad24 Apr 2028
Words at NK Varazdin training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Emil Frederiksen 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.
Nobody at NK Varazdin will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined 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 NK Varazdin, and both men came out saying it was fine.
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 Mateo Lisica is on it.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Dinamo Zagreb know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
5 goals in 22 games at ZTE — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Dinamo Zagreb updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
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 watch every Dinamo Zagreb game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at NK Varazdin runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
Nobody at Dinamo Zagreb will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Dinamo Zagreb know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
6 goals in 23 games at Uljanik Pula — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Dinamo Zagreb updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
5 goals in 22 games at ZTE — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Dinamo Zagreb updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
35 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. NK Varazdin lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Dubrava waiting with a shirt. Nobody at NK Varazdin is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what NK Varazdin can pretend not to have heard.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. NK Varazdin have done the hard part with Dinamo Zagreb, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at NK Varazdin this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad10 Jan 2028
Words at NK Varazdin training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Evgeny Morozov 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.
Add another name to the list: Varteks have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Ivan Canjuga. The answer from NK Varazdin has not changed — yet.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around NK Varazdin they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at NK Varazdin 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 watch every NK Varazdin game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Radnik Krizevci runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Léo Jardim wants continental football; whether Dinamo Zagreb can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
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.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Dion Beljo signs something — a contract at Dinamo Zagreb or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Numbers do not stay secret in a dressing room and never have. He is not asking for more than he is worth; he is asking why somebody beside him is worth more, and at Dinamo Zagreb that is a harder question to answer.