Marked for Dušan Jovanović
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad20 Jan 2031
Lazar Mijović is in the form of his life
A season average of 7.51 with 24 goals behind it. Opponents have started planning around him, which is the sincerest compliment football pays.
Player ratings20 Jan 2031
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 9.17, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Market20 Jan 2031
The fee is $1.7M, the contract is signed, and the argument about whether he is worth it can begin. Crvena Zvezda drove a hard bargain; time will say who won it.
Market20 Jan 2031
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Market20 Jan 2031
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Maksim Kličković will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Cukaricki the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Transfer targets20 Jan 2031
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at AFC Wimbledon is saying, and nobody at Cukaricki is enjoying the guessing.
Squad20 Jan 2031
Đorđe 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.
Transfer targets20 Jan 2031
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. OFK Beograd have kept their man, and Cukaricki go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Squad20 Jan 2031
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Timothy Castagne has just signed for Cukaricki, and for once the answer mattered.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market25 Feb 2030
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Cukaricki they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad25 Feb 2030
Đorđe Nikolić and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad25 Feb 2030
Words at Cukaricki training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Srđan Mijailović 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.
Market25 Feb 2030
“We are a long way apart, and pretending otherwise helps nobody.” Neither side is close, and the calendar is not on the club's side.
Squad25 Feb 2030
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. Cukaricki will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
The dugout25 Feb 2030
The manager makes an example of Marko Ćurić
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
The dugout25 Feb 2030
Lazar Tufegdžić has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Cukaricki 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.
Market25 Feb 2030
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Cukaricki know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
The dugout25 Feb 2030
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Cukaricki. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market18 Feb 2030
Cukaricki say no — this time
The offer from Ufa for Vojislav Jokić 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.
Squad18 Feb 2030
A move Dušan Jovanović would have made for nothing
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Dušan Jovanović is living that version at Cukaricki, and it tends to show in the first month.
Squad18 Feb 2030
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Cukaricki this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad18 Feb 2030
Words at Cukaricki training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Srđan Mijailović 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 dugout18 Feb 2030
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Squad18 Feb 2030
The formation has left Savo Rašković behind
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. Cukaricki will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
The dugout18 Feb 2030
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.
Market18 Feb 2030
“There is a gap, and pretending there is not helps nobody.” Neither side has moved, and the calendar is working for exactly one of them.
Market18 Feb 2030
The name of Đorđe Nikolić keeps appearing in other people's back pages. Cukaricki say nothing, which says plenty.