Marked for Miloš Zekić
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad4 Jan 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 Borac Čačak this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad4 Jan 2027
Words at Borac Čačak training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ismaël Maïga 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 terraces4 Jan 2027
He is 23 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
Match2 Jan 2027
A 2‑0 win over Smederevo 1924, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Player ratings4 Jan 2027
Marked 8.11 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
The dugout4 Jan 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Miloš Zekić, and the manager let it.
Squad4 Jan 2027
“The easiest signature of my career.” Jeremiah Okine-Peters and Borac Čačak agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Transfer targets4 Jan 2027
Radnik Surdulica 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.
Transfer targets4 Jan 2027
A loan enquiry to Voždovac: cover, or a look at somebody the club cannot afford to buy yet. Either way the answer will come back inside the week.
In brief
-
Squad
Nikola Čolić makes the team of the month
-
The dugout
The manager’s verdict
-
The dugout
Nikola Petrić gets picked when it counts
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad16 Nov 2026
Nikola Petrić 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.
Squad16 Nov 2026
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Dušan Živković was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout16 Nov 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Miloš Zekić, and the manager let it.
The dugout16 Nov 2026
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.
Looking ahead16 Nov 2026
OFK Vršac next, and one man in the Borac Čačak dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
The dugout16 Nov 2026
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Borac Čačak. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Player ratings9 Nov 2026
Successful dribbles: 21. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad9 Nov 2026
Ismaël Maïga 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.
Match7 Nov 2026
Beaten 0‑1, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
The dugout9 Nov 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Stefan Nikolić, and the manager let it.
The dugout9 Nov 2026
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑1, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
The dugout9 Nov 2026
Nikola Petrić gets picked when it counts
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 Nikola Petrić is on it.
The dugout9 Nov 2026
Miloš Zekić 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 Borac Čačak, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Market9 Nov 2026
The name of Nikola Petrić keeps appearing in other people's back pages. Borac Čačak say nothing, which says plenty.
Squad9 Nov 2026
“I did not sign to watch. Nobody does.” The oldest complaint in the game, and Borac Čačak will have to answer it with minutes or with a move.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad28 Sep 2026
9 saves, and a scoreline the ten men in front of him had no right to. Goalkeepers only get noticed on the bad days; this was one of the other ones.
Match26 Sep 2026
Still nobody has beaten Borac Čačak
The unbeaten run reaches 9. Some of them were wins and some were escapes, but a side that refuses to lose is a side other dressing rooms talk about.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Ismaël Maïga 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.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Stefan Nikolić 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
200 times in these colours, in all weathers and under four or five different managers. That kind of service is quietly disappearing from the game.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 18. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
The dugout28 Sep 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Miloš Zekić, and the manager let it.
Match26 Sep 2026
1‑1, and both dressing rooms will call it two points lost. A draw that asked plenty of questions and answered none of them.
The dugout28 Sep 2026
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Stefan Lukic after the 1‑1 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad21 Sep 2026
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 6 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Match19 Sep 2026
Still nobody has beaten Borac Čačak
The unbeaten run reaches 8. Some of them were wins and some were escapes, but a side that refuses to lose is a side other dressing rooms talk about.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Words at Borac Čačak training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ismaël Maïga 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.
Match19 Sep 2026
It finished 1‑0, and it was Marko Jović’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Borac Čačak.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
Marked 7.73. Ask anyone leaving the ground what settled it and you will get one name, which is the only award that has ever really counted.
The dugout21 Sep 2026
The view from the dugout
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” Stefan Lukic, on a 1‑0 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
The dugout21 Sep 2026
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 Aleksa Marković is on it.
Squad21 Sep 2026
The one goal every signing is asked about until it comes. It has come, and a press-conference question has been retired.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 12. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Match12 Sep 2026
Still nobody has beaten Borac Čačak
The unbeaten run reaches 7. Some of them were wins and some were escapes, but a side that refuses to lose is a side other dressing rooms talk about.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Ismaël Maïga and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 21. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Transfer targets14 Sep 2026
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.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Dušan Živković 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 dugout14 Sep 2026
“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.
Squad14 Sep 2026
17 new faces, and Borac Čačak are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
The dugout14 Sep 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Stefan Lukic was not hiding it after 0‑0, and nobody in the Borac Čačak dressing room was either.
Match12 Sep 2026
Nil-nil, and few chances worth the name. Ušće came to defend and left with exactly what they came for.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Player ratings10 Aug 2026
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 8.23, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Đorđe Popović arrives at the club he grew up with
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Đorđe Popović has, at Borac Čačak, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
Player ratings10 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 25. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Player ratings10 Aug 2026
A goal and an assist for Đorđe Popović — 7.96
Involvement in 2 goals, from a player who spent the ninety minutes doing the thing a manager actually wants: being where the ball was going to end up. 7.96 beside his name.
Match8 Aug 2026
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 6 goals between Borac Čačak and Kabel, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
Match8 Aug 2026
A 4‑2 win over Kabel, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Stefan Nikolić 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 terraces10 Aug 2026
The crowd has taken to Miloš Zekić
At 22 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.
Market10 Aug 2026
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Aleksandar Mitrovic is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.