“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Baltazar Bogolin commits to Hrvace for another 3 years.
Squad14 Dec 2026
Niko Farkaš 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.
Hasip Korkmazyürek 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.
Warm-up bib, ninety minutes of watching, and a handshake at the end that fooled nobody. Big matches tell you who a manager trusts; this one told Baltazar Bogolin.
The dugout14 Dec 2026
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 1‑2 defeat, delivered by Petar Petkovic to a room that had heard them before.
There were 6 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Player ratings7 Dec 2026
Šime Perko, 18, plays like he has been here for years — 7.78
A mark of 7.78 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 18-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
7.31, 1 on the scoresheet, and the specific comedy of a back-four player celebrating like somebody who does this every week. He does not, and that is exactly why the ground reacted the way it did.
Zoran Lesjak 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Ivan Dominić was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
At 20 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Hrvace this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad16 Nov 2026
Ivan Dominić 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 words a physio says slowly. 17 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.
Jarun Zagreb will want this one forgotten quickly: 4‑0, every duel lost, and a long ride home. Hrvace were ruthless in the way good sides are ruthless.
Marked 8.14 at 21, in a side that makes no allowances for age. He did not need any, and he looked the least nervous man on the pitch.
Squad9 Nov 2026
Niko Farkaš 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.
He is 18 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
Marked 8.29 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Daniel Vinković 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.
The words a physio says slowly. 32 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.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Ivan Dominić 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Filip Jagarčec. 2‑1 against Rudes, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Filip Musa 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.
He is 22 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
Marked 8.09 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Position 9, 11 points, and every result so far reduced to one line. The second half of the season starts with the same squad and a different set of expectations.
1‑4 to Orijent 1919, and it was every bit as bad as the number suggests. There are defeats you argue about and defeats you apologise for; this was the second kind.
8 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.
Zoran Lesjak 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.
The door stayed shut a long time after the final whistle. What was said in there is between them; whether it worked is between them and Saturday.
The dugout5 Oct 2026
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 1‑4 Petar Petkovic left the room before anybody could ask which.
Successful dribbles: 25. 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 deal with FCSB 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Ivan Dominić was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Beaten 0‑1, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
The dugout31 Aug 2026
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 Petar Petkovic to a room that had heard them before.
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. Hrvace will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.