Marked for Stephen Reynaerts
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad27 Mar 2028
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 22 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Market27 Mar 2028
Only the photograph left for Murat Bajraj
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Murat Bajraj will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Beltinci the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad27 Mar 2028
Words exchanged at Beltinci
Murat Bajraj 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.
Squad27 Mar 2028
A row about effort at Beltinci
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Nik Pirc was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout27 Mar 2028
“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 dugout27 Mar 2028
Nejc Doplihar knocks on the manager’s door
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Nejc Doplihar trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Market27 Mar 2028
The Stefan Moćić talk will not go away
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Beltinci know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Market27 Mar 2028
The clock does Murat Bajraj’s negotiating for him
4 months left, and both sides know what that means: every week without a signature, the fee Beltinci could ask drops and the wages Murat Bajraj can ask rise.
The dugout27 Mar 2028
Mato Bagavac has been promised minutes
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Mato Bagavac has written the date down.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad6 Mar 2028
46 days out for Denys Dolinskyi after a fracture
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Beltinci will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Boardroom6 Mar 2028
Erik Cerin has until the next board meeting
What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at Beltinci can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
Match6 Mar 2028
Full time on the season at Beltinci
Position 8 on 39 points. Every season is a story and this is the last line of it, and now the club has three months to decide what the next one is about.
Squad6 Mar 2028
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 8 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
The dugout6 Mar 2028
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Beltinci have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Market6 Mar 2028
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Beltinci is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Match4 Mar 2028
The wait goes on for Beltinci
4 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
Boardroom6 Mar 2028
The rules permit it and it stings anyway. Armin Pašić has agreed terms with NK Krka for the summer, and until then he pulls on this shirt as a player who has already chosen his next one.
Squad6 Mar 2028
A falling-out at Beltinci
Murat Bajraj and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad11 Oct 2027
A falling-out at Beltinci
Murat Bajraj and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad11 Oct 2027
33 days, the scan says, and scans are kinder than reality. The fixtures in that window have just become somebody else’s job.
Squad11 Oct 2027
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Luka Janza and Beltinci agree another 2 years.
Squad11 Oct 2027
Too much change too quickly at Beltinci
10 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
The dugout11 Oct 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Stephen Reynaerts, and the manager let it.
Looking ahead11 Oct 2027
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Nik Pirc’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Beltinci needing him to play as if none of it matters.
Market11 Oct 2027
The Murat Bajraj story refuses to die
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Murat Bajraj signs something — a contract at Beltinci or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Market11 Oct 2027
3 months left and the two sides are nowhere near each other. Every week this drags on takes money off what Beltinci could get for him.
Market11 Oct 2027
24 months and counting on Luka Janza
Still no offer on the table, and Luka Janza’s deal keeps shrinking. In boardroom language, silence this long stops being an oversight and starts being an answer.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match30 Nov 2026
Beltinci sink to position 14
11 points, and a fixture list that is running out. The mathematics are not yet cruel, but they are no longer kind.
Match28 Nov 2026
No end in sight to Beltinci's wait for a win
5 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Beltinci has to find a result from somewhere.
Squad30 Nov 2026
A falling-out at Beltinci
Murat Bajraj and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad30 Nov 2026
Words at Beltinci training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. David Castro 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.
Boardroom30 Nov 2026
251% of the income goes out in wages at Beltinci
Every club in football 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 somebody has tried it.
Looking ahead30 Nov 2026
A six-pointer for Beltinci
Ilirija 1911 next, and both sides can do the sum. Win and the table looks different; lose and it looks the way everybody has been fearing.
Player ratings30 Nov 2026
Blaž Rožmarič ran the middle of the pitch — 7.14
He won it back and then made something of it, which is two jobs and the reason the scoreline looks the way it does. 9 combined actions and a mark of 7.14, and not one of them will make a highlights package.
Match30 Nov 2026
Halfway: Beltinci sit in position 14
11 points at the turn. The first half of a season is a promise; the second is a bill, and the town is about to find out which of the two this one was.
Market30 Nov 2026
Signings arrive with a picture of the club in their head, and this one’s picture was bigger than the building. He will play well and he will be gone, in that order, and everybody knows it.