The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Ragnar Thorsteinsson has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
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 manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Anton Fannar Kjartansson has his answer from Leiknir; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
The captaincy has been taken off Ólafur Íshólm Ólafsson. Leiknir will call it a decision about the team; a dressing room reads it as a verdict on a man.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Leiknir told Bastian Holm something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
85 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Cibalia lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Francis Hurl will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Cibalia the goodbyes have quietly begun.
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.
5 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.
Successful dribbles: 14. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
The dugout27 Sep 2027
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Fran Pjaca was not hiding it after 0‑0, and nobody in the Cibalia dressing room was either.
The manager wanted a different profile for this opponent, which is a real football reason and no consolation. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
The words a physio says slowly. 113 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Cibalia can pretend not to have heard.
“I know what people will say. I know what I want, and it is here.” Jarun Zagreb had the fee agreed and the shirt ready; they did not have the player, and now they will not.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Cibalia have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Cibalia is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Dinamo Zagreb keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
100 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Cibalia lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Cibalia is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at HNK Rijeka is saying, and nobody at Cibalia is enjoying the guessing.
Somebody has moved past him. It is not a dropping and it is worse than one, because a dropping is about a Saturday and this is about where he stands.
The dugout2 Aug 2027
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 0‑1 defeat, delivered by Fran Pjaca to a room that had heard them before.
5 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.
Squad2 Aug 2027
A place in the month's best eleven for David Žabec
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. David Žabec has come out of that comparison in the side, and Cibalia have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
In brief
Boardroom85% of the income goes out in wages at Cibalia
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Cibalia people have started saying his name in the past tense.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Cibalia can pretend not to have heard.
The deal with HNK Vukovar 1991 is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Cibalia they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Cibalia had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Dinamo Zagreb, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
Cibalia asked and HNK Gorica said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
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.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Cibalia, and it is not being withdrawn.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Cibalia they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Cibalia have done the hard part with Dinamo Zagreb, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
He will play here until the summer and then walk out of the door for free, having already signed elsewhere. Supporters will manage the first part of that sentence; it is the second they will struggle with.
Cibalia have made the call to Slaven Belupo. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
It will be explained as a change for the team and it may even be one. Nobody who has worn one believes that, and neither does the man who has just had it taken away.
18 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Cibalia lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Cibalia can pretend not to have heard.
Marin Kuzminski 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.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Cibalia, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Nobody at Cibalia 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.