It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at NK Osijek this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Antonio Milić was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“I watch every NK Osijek game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Cibalia runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
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 Yannick Touré is on it.
5 shut-outs in 10 games. A goalkeeper’s loan is judged on the afternoons when nothing happened at all, and Matej Grahovac has been having a lot of them.
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Cibalia this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad18 Jan 2027
Words at Cibalia training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Christian Ilić 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.
Nothing happens for months and then he simply arrives, at no cost, having signed a pre-contract while still turning out for somebody else. It is the least dramatic way to sign a footballer and frequently the shrewdest.
Cibalia asked and Slaven Belupo said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Cibalia are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
6 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 manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Petar Mišić has his answer from Cibalia; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
“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.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Jokūbaz Mažionis has just signed for Cibalia, and for once the answer mattered.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Cibalia this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Duje Horvat is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
In brief
Transfer targetsA loan move for Josip Baturina is in the works
The deal with NK Osijek 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.
Renato Kelić 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.
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.
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. Cibalia will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Cibalia, another week without a signature from Josh Tomlinson.
In brief
BoardroomOpen for business: Cibalia enter the window