Marked for Mladen Blažević
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad25 Oct 2027
Marko Mikulić damages knee ligaments — 25 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 25 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.
Match25 Oct 2027
Dugo Selo sink to position 15
11 points, and a fixture list that is running out. The mathematics are not yet cruel, but they are no longer kind.
The dugout25 Oct 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.
Market25 Oct 2027
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Dugo Selo is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Match23 Oct 2027
4 matches without a win for Dugo Selo
The run now stands at 4, and the questions being asked around Dugo Selo are no longer polite ones.
Squad25 Oct 2027
Words exchanged at Dugo Selo
Marko Mikulić and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Boardroom25 Oct 2027
The numbers do not look good at Dugo Selo
Wages have outrun income and the accountants have started attending meetings they used to send apologies to. Ambition comes second in a season like this.
Squad25 Oct 2027
Maks Slunjski 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 dugout25 Oct 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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad10 May 2027
Hadji Issa Moustapha 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.
Boardroom10 May 2027
The numbers do not look good at Dugo Selo
Wages have outrun income and the accountants have started attending meetings they used to send apologies to. Ambition comes second in a season like this.
Squad10 May 2027
Words at Dugo Selo training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Maks Slunjski 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 dugout10 May 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Lorenzo Travaglia, and the manager let it.
The dugout10 May 2027
Josip Vučković has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Dugo Selo 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.
Market10 May 2027
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Šimun Grgić’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad22 Mar 2027
Novak Tepšić 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.
Squad22 Mar 2027
Words at Dugo Selo training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Maks Slunjski 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.
Boardroom22 Mar 2027
Wages eat 165% of everything Dugo Selo earn
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
The dugout22 Mar 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.
The dugout22 Mar 2027
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Dugo Selo, and both men came out saying it was fine.
The dugout22 Mar 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.
Market22 Mar 2027
The name of Lovro Gubijan keeps appearing in other people's back pages. Dugo Selo say nothing, which says plenty.
The dugout22 Mar 2027
The manager makes Maks Slunjski a promise
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Dugo Selo. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
Squad22 Mar 2027
He looks like a man who lives here now rather than one who is working here. It took most of a season, and at Dugo Selo the difference is visible from the back of the stand.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
The dugout11 Jan 2027
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Dugo Selo may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Squad11 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 Dugo Selo this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad11 Jan 2027
Mladen Blažević 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. Mladen Blažević has, at Dugo Selo, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
Squad11 Jan 2027
Words at Dugo Selo training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Hadji Issa Moustapha 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.
Player ratings11 Jan 2027
Successful dribbles: 20. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Transfer targets11 Jan 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 dugout11 Jan 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.
Match9 Jan 2027
0‑1 to Kustosija, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Squad11 Jan 2027
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Dugo Selo are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
In brief
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The dugout
The manager’s verdict
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Transfer targets
A loan move for Duje Biuk is in the works
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The dugout
When it matters, Josip Vučković plays