A season average of 7.27 at an age when most of his year group are still in the youth team. Segesta know what they have, and so, by now, does everybody else.
Transfer targets18 Jan 2027
$190.0K settles it between the clubs for Marin Delić
Dinamo Zagreb have accepted the money. What Segesta do not yet have is the man, and between here and the photograph is a conversation about wages that both sides are dreading.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Segesta have done the hard part with Dinamo Zagreb, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
Segesta 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.
The rules permit it and it stings anyway. Lovro Herceg has agreed terms with Cibalia for the summer, and until then he pulls on this shirt as a player who has already chosen his next one.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Segesta is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
The interest is real enough to have reached print. Segesta have said nothing, which in a transfer window is its own kind of answer.
Squad18 Jan 2027
Karlo Bilić 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Segesta this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Lokomotiva Zagreb have lost him in all but the paperwork.
Lokomotiva Zagreb asked and Sesvete said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Nobody makes a documentary about a hamstring and everybody in the game fears one. Lokomotiva Zagreb will be careful with the return date, because the second one is always worse than the first.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Lokomotiva Zagreb has been clear about where Luka Dajčer stands, which is more than many ever get.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Lokomotiva Zagreb 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.
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.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Chinonso Chibueze and Lokomotiva Zagreb agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
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 Marko Rog is on it.
Words at Segesta training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Domagoj Mamić 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.
Every club pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time it has been tried.
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 Vilim Gec is on it.
Mislav Ćutuk is 19, and for one weekend he was the best of everybody his age in the division. Nobody should build a career on it and everybody quietly does.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Dino Špehar signs something — a contract at Segesta or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
91 minutes played. Dmitry Vorobjov found the finish in time that only existed because of earlier delays, and HNK Vukovar 1991 went from a point to nothing inside one movement.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Dmitry Vorobjov provided it, and the 9.18 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Lokomotiva Zagreb 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.
Mirko Marić wins it after the whistle should have gone
94 minutes played. Mirko Marić found the finish in time that only existed because of earlier delays, and Slaven Belupo went from a point to nothing inside one movement.
Petar Zvonimir Kostelac 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 19 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.
The fixture the rest of the division is looking forward to more than either of the sides in it. Both know a win changes the season and a defeat does not end it, which is what makes it hard to play.
Player ratings19 Oct 2026
Mirko Marić was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.07. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Lokomotiva Zagreb, and 2 appearances in 10 say he has earned the hearing.
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 9.00, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Words at Segesta training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Domagoj Mamić 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.
Tonći Kukoč-Petraello 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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 19-year-old it feels ownership of. Mislav Ćutuk has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Lokomotiva Zagreb this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Lokomotiva Zagreb, and 2 appearances in 6 say he has earned the hearing.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Mirko Sušak has his answer from Lokomotiva Zagreb; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
“There are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 0‑0, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.
The team sheet says it in public every week until it changes. The only version of being dropped a footballer cannot argue with, and the one he takes hardest.
Successful dribbles: 13. 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 crowd waited for a goal that never came. NK Varazdin defended in numbers and left with what they came for, and the two sides could be playing still without troubling a scorer.
Successful dribbles: 21. 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.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Karlo Bilić 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.
Segesta 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.
49 months to run and not a word offered. A club that lets the calendar negotiate for it usually ends up losing to the calendar.
Squad3 Aug 2026
7 new faces, and Segesta are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.