“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 The request is on a desk at Rudes, and it is not being withdrawn.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Kristijan Lovrić 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.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Rudes can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
“I watch every Rudes game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at HNK Vukovar 1991 runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
“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.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and BSK Bijelo Brdo waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Lokomotiva Zagreb is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Slavia Prague is saying, and nobody at Lokomotiva Zagreb is enjoying the guessing.
6 boys move up, and somewhere in the building the people who coached them at twelve are quietly having the best morning of their working year. Nothing about this shows up in a result and it is why the academy exists.
Rudes paid $99.0K and Lokomotiva Zagreb took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Feta Fetai 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Dinamo Moscow have kept their man, and Lokomotiva Zagreb go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Marko Vešović and Lokomotiva Zagreb agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Lokomotiva Zagreb are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Mate Antunović was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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.
2 appearances and 0 clean sheets. A goalkeeper learns his job by playing it, and a season that gave him neither the games nor the shut-outs is a year taken off the front of a career.
He went out to keep goal every week and came back with 0 games and 0 of them shut out. Somebody at Lokomotiva Zagreb argued for this move last summer; nobody is arguing for it now.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ibrahim Sabra 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.
“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 5 appearances in 25 say he has earned the hearing.
He went out to keep goal every week and came back with 2 games and 0 of them shut out. Somebody at Lokomotiva Zagreb argued for this move last summer; nobody is arguing for it now.
0 appearances and 0 clean sheets. A goalkeeper learns his job by playing it, and a season that gave him neither the games nor the shut-outs is a year taken off the front of a career.
Nobody at Lokomotiva Zagreb 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.
The deal with Slaven Belupo 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.
0 in and 3 out, and no more changes for months. The manager has what he has, the supporters have their opinion of it, and the table will have the last word.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ibrahim Sabra 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Zenit have kept their man, and Lokomotiva Zagreb go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
“I watch every Lokomotiva Zagreb game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Grobnican runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
A deal that was a phone call from completion at lunchtime was dead by midnight. Lokomotiva Zagreb will try again when the window opens; Slaven Belupo may not be selling by then.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Grobnican have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
“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 Grobnican, and it is not being withdrawn.
Jurica Jurčec 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.
Squad25 Jan 2027
Words at Grobnican training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Maks Slunjski 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.
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
He is 17 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 8.18 — 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.
There are footballers who have a good season and footballers a season is remembered for, and the second kind get their names read out in a hall in the summer. Lokomotiva Zagreb will be quietly delighted and privately nervous.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Mate Antunović is 22, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Marko Vešović 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.
The name of Oliver Heiðarsson has come up in conversations Lokomotiva Zagreb were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Squad4 Jan 2027
Ibrahim Sabra is the division's best young player this month
At 20 he has spent a month being better than everybody his age in the league, which is a different and harder thing than one good afternoon. Lokomotiva Zagreb will try very hard not to make too much of it.
Jurica Jurčec and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad14 Dec 2026
Maks Slunjski 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.
“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.
Ninety specific minutes wanted a different sort of player, and the manager picked one. He is not out of form and he is not in the side, and both are true.
Trnje next, and one man in the Grobnican dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
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.
20 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Lokomotiva Zagreb lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Tino Jukić commits to Lokomotiva Zagreb for another 4 years.
Squad7 Dec 2026
Ibrahim Sabra 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.
“I did not go to Grobnican to sit and watch. I want to come back to Lokomotiva Zagreb and fight for my place.” 0 appearances in 17 matches say the rest.
A 1‑0 win over HNK Vukovar 1991, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
7.98, and no serious argument from anybody who was there. Lokomotiva Zagreb had eleven men on the pitch and one of them decided how it went.
The dugout7 Dec 2026
The manager has not finished forgetting Mario Šitum's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
In brief
The dugoutThe team sheet said everything about Marko Pajač
51 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Lokomotiva Zagreb lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Marko Vešović 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 had been thinking. Ibrahim Sabra 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.
“I did not go to Grobnican to sit and watch. I want to come back to Lokomotiva Zagreb and fight for my place.” 0 appearances in 13 matches say the rest.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager has not finished forgetting Mario Šitum's mistake
Out, 0‑3 to Lokomotiva Zagreb, and the long argument about which of the small moments decided it. The league is all there is now, and everybody knows it.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
0-3, and long before the end the away end had switched from encouragement to something considerably more pointed. Nobody rings a phone-in about losing narrowly.
“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 Grobnican, and it is not being withdrawn.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 19 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
At 34, 3 points below where he was, and a body that has started charging interest. It happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph on this page.
Jurica Jurčec 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.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Maks Slunjski 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.
Squad12 Oct 2026
19 new faces, and Grobnican 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.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Grobnican told Tomas Baković something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is David Martić’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Grobnican needing him to play as if none of it matters.
In brief
The dugoutDorian Anušić asks for a word with the manager
The words a physio says slowly. 38 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.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 20 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Marko Vešović 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.
“I did not go to Grobnican to sit and watch. I want to come back to Lokomotiva Zagreb and fight for my place.” 0 appearances in 9 matches say the rest.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Medin Gashi was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
HNK Gorica next, and one man in the Lokomotiva Zagreb dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
16 points from position 5. The title is somebody else’s business and the drop is somebody else’s problem; what is left is the argument about passports.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Luka Dajčer trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Position 3, 10 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
7.96, 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.
3 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Ibrahim Sabra was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Mirko Marić. 2‑0 against Istra 1961, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
12 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
“I watch every Lokomotiva Zagreb game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Grobnican runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
The dugout14 Sep 2026
The view from the dugout
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” Bojan Tadic, on a 2‑0 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
At 18 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 Grobnican this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Grobnican have made the call to Dinamo Zagreb. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
Grobnican have made the call to Lokomotiva Zagreb. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
NK Osijek 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.
The dugout3 Aug 2026
The view from the dugout
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” Dario Petkov, on a 1‑0 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
It is a strip of cloth and it decides nothing on a Saturday. It still tells the dressing room exactly whose opinion the manager values, which is the whole point of it.