Marked for Craig Mamilo
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad6 Sep 2027
Božidar Radošević damages knee ligaments — 41 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 41 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Market6 Sep 2027
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
The dugout6 Sep 2027
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Bjelovar may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Boardroom6 Sep 2027
Window shuts: 15 in, 8 out at Bjelovar
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 15 arrived, 8 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
Squad6 Sep 2027
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Bjelovar this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The dugout6 Sep 2027
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Squad6 Sep 2027
Fran Kukec is no longer first choice
The manager has re-ordered his thinking and Fran Kukec has come out of it lower. He will be told it is temporary, and the players who have heard that before will avoid his eye.
Squad6 Sep 2027
Craig Mamilo 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.
The dugout6 Sep 2027
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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad16 Aug 2027
62 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Bjelovar lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Squad16 Aug 2027
Jurica Jurčec 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.
Transfer targets16 Aug 2027
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
The dugout16 Aug 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Karlo Valjan, and the manager let it.
Match14 Aug 2027
Bjelovar rescue it on 86 minutes
Behind, and beaten by any honest reading, until minute 86. Mladost Zdralovi had the points in their pocket and a corner of the ground still believed, which is generally when it happens.
Market16 Aug 2027
Matija Fintić is free to find somewhere else
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Bjelovar has been clear about where Matija Fintić stands, which is more than many ever get.
Market16 Aug 2027
“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 Mihael Mladen.
Match14 Aug 2027
It finished 2‑2, and it somehow always looked like it would. One of those afternoons where the table moves less than the tempers.
Squad16 Aug 2027
Words at Bjelovar training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Craig Mamilo 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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad5 Jul 2027
A knee injury of the worst kind for Božidar Radošević
107 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Bjelovar lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Match5 Jul 2027
Bjelovar refuse to drop out of the race
Position 2, 46 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.
Market5 Jul 2027
“I listened, I thought about it, and I am staying. That is the whole story.” The clubs had agreed a fee. Antonio Blažanović had not agreed to go, which turned out to be the part that mattered.
Market5 Jul 2027
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Squad5 Jul 2027
A falling-out at Bjelovar
Jurica Jurčec and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Boardroom5 Jul 2027
Belts tighten at Bjelovar
The accounts are being read more closely than the results. Wages before ambition is the order of business now, and the manager has been told so.
Market5 Jul 2027
“We are a long way apart, and pretending otherwise helps nobody.” Neither side is close, and the calendar is not on the club's side.
Boardroom5 Jul 2027
$744.1K on the table at Bjelovar
The board have answered with money instead of encouragement, which is the only answer a manager ever wants. Spending it well is now entirely his problem.
Squad5 Jul 2027
Craig Mamilo 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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad21 Jun 2027
121 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Bjelovar lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Squad21 Jun 2027
Craig Mamilo is a better footballer than he was
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.
Squad21 Jun 2027
Dario Barada in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Bjelovar this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad21 Jun 2027
The decline has begun for Igor Ribić
Everybody saw it before anybody said it. At 34 the numbers say 3 points down on what he was, and the question for Bjelovar is how to handle a man they owe a great deal.
Transfer targets21 Jun 2027
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Jarun Zagreb have kept their man, and Bjelovar go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
The dugout21 Jun 2027
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Transfer targets21 Jun 2027
A loan move for Josip Silić is in the works
Bjelovar 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.
Transfer targets21 Jun 2027
A loan move for Jakov Gurlica is in the works
Bjelovar have made the call to Lokomotiva Zagreb. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
The dugout21 Jun 2027
Loren Maružin knocks on the manager's door
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Bjelovar, and both men came out saying it was fine.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad14 Jun 2027
Božidar Radošević damages knee ligaments — 129 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 129 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Market14 Jun 2027
The fee is $78.0K, the contract is signed, and the argument about whether he is worth it can begin. BSK Bijelo Brdo drove a hard bargain; time will say who won it.
Squad14 Jun 2027
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Bjelovar this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Transfer targets14 Jun 2027
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
The dugout14 Jun 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Karlo Valjan, and the manager let it.
Boardroom14 Jun 2027
Wages swallow 103% of the Bjelovar income
Every club 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 it has been tried.
Market14 Jun 2027
“We are a long way apart, and pretending otherwise helps nobody.” Neither side is close, and the calendar is not on the club's side.
Squad14 Jun 2027
Words at Bjelovar training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Craig Mamilo 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.
Transfer targets14 Jun 2027
A loan move for Elvir Duraković is in the works
Bjelovar 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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Match15 Mar 2027
Bjelovar refuse to drop out of the race
Position 2, 46 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.
Squad15 Mar 2027
Dario Barada 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.
Squad15 Mar 2027
Oleksandr Petrusenko 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.
The dugout15 Mar 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Šimun Grgić, and the manager let it.
Market15 Mar 2027
“We are a long way apart, and pretending otherwise helps nobody.” Neither side is close, and the calendar is not on the club's side.
The dugout15 Mar 2027
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.
Squad15 Mar 2027
Bjelovar are still strangers to each other
5 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
Boardroom15 Mar 2027
Belts tighten at Bjelovar
The accounts are being read more closely than the results. Wages before ambition is the order of business now, and the manager has been told so.
The dugout15 Mar 2027
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 Ivan Lagundžić is on it.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
The dugout8 Mar 2027
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Player ratings8 Mar 2027
Successful dribbles: 24. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Match6 Mar 2027
Every run ends on an afternoon somebody had marked down as routine. This one went 9 matches, which is long enough that a town had stopped counting, and short enough that it will remember exactly who stopped it.
Squad8 Mar 2027
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Božidar Radošević and Bjelovar agree another 2 years.
Squad8 Mar 2027
Mihael Mladen 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.
Squad8 Mar 2027
Words at Bjelovar training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Oleksandr Petrusenko 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 dugout8 Mar 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Fran Kukec, and the manager let it.
Match6 Mar 2027
Segesta left with the points after a 0‑1 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Loan watch8 Mar 2027
22 appearances at Yantra and the goals keep coming. Bjelovar are watching this more closely than the borrowing club would like.