“I know what people will say. I know what I want, and it is here.” Dugo Selo had the fee agreed and the shirt ready; they did not have the player, and now they will not.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Slaven Belupo can pretend not to have heard.
Slaven Belupo asked and NK Osijek said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Lokomotiva Zagreb 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.
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 Duje Matić is on it.
It has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
The offer from Sesvete for Petar Andrić was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Slaven Belupo is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Slaven Belupo had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Hajduk Split, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
Tin Kuprešak 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.
Squad9 Jul 2029
Words at Slaven Belupo training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Lovro Banovec 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.
Lokomotiva Zagreb 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.
Slaven Belupo have made the call to Hajduk Split. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Tin Srna has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
Position 8 and 18 points, and the table gets read bottom-up in this part of town. The calendar has stopped being a schedule and started being a countdown.
“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 Slaven Belupo, and it is not being withdrawn.
Nothing has been announced and everybody understands what it means. A board that summons the whole football department on a Tuesday morning is a board that has stopped believing the problem will fix itself.
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
A bad atmosphere can be waited out. A group of people meeting afterwards to decide what to do about it cannot, and everybody in the building knows which stage this is.
33 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Slaven Belupo lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
“I know what people will say. I know what I want, and it is here.” Mladost Zdralovi had the fee agreed and the shirt ready; they did not have the player, and now they will not.
Transfer targets11 Jun 2029
$190.0K settles it between the clubs for Josip Posavec
Lokomotiva Zagreb have accepted the money. What Slaven Belupo do not yet have is the man, and between here and the photograph is a conversation about wages that both sides are dreading.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Slaven Belupo they have already started talking about him 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 Slaven Belupo can pretend not to have heard.
The deal with Sesvete 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.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $352.9K — a club that wants Ilan Pejić enough to be asked twice.
Igor Lepinjica 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.
In brief
Transfer targetsAn offer of $35.0K for Roko Jurišić
What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at Slaven Belupo can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
The official line will be that it was routine. It was not routine, the timing says so, and every person in that room knows what the next bad result costs.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Slaven Belupo this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Every squad is half players the manager chose and half players he inherited. Sandro Kulenović was chosen, the man who chose him has gone, and he starts again from nothing under the next one.
Squad2 Apr 2029
Words at Slaven Belupo training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Leon Ayinde 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.
Nobody at Slaven Belupo 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.
A year in and the city has not opened up, the language has not come, and lunch is eaten alone more often than anybody at Slaven Belupo would admit. It shows on Saturdays.
In brief
The dugoutAnte Bilobrk asks for a word with the manager
The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Tin Srna has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
The official line will be that it was routine. It was not routine, the timing says so, and every person in that room knows what the next bad result costs.
“I know what people will say. I know what I want, and it is here.” Jadran Luka Ploce had the fee agreed and the shirt ready; they did not have the player, and now they will not.
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Slaven Belupo this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Matej Mehle has just signed for Slaven Belupo, and for once the answer mattered.
112 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Slaven Belupo lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
10 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.