The words a physio says slowly. 14 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Lokomotiva Zagreb can pretend not to have heard.
Mirko Sušak 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. Cardoso Varela 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.
Marked 9.00 — 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 is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Marcelo Vrsaljko 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.
“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.
The words a physio says slowly. 21 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.
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.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Oliver Heiðarsson and Lokomotiva Zagreb agree another 2 years.
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.
Add another name to the list: Sesvete have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Duje Kasalo. The answer from Lokomotiva Zagreb has not changed — yet.
29 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.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Lokomotiva Zagreb have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Lokomotiva Zagreb they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
36 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.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nikola Soldo 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.
In brief
SquadMirko Sušak has become a man the manager trusts
43 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.
Mirko Sušak 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.
50 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.
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.
57 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.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Lokomotiva Zagreb they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Lokomotiva Zagreb hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
64 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.
Player ratings24 Nov 2036
Marin Petkov, 20, plays like he has been here for years — 8.09
A mark of 8.09 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 20-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
26 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Lokomotiva Zagreb they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
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.
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.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Goran Brekalo and Lokomotiva Zagreb agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and Lokomotiva Zagreb know it.
71 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.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.42 at 34, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Mirko Sušak 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.
Successful dribbles: 22. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad17 Nov 2036
Nikola Soldo 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 goal that put Rudes ahead was still being replayed on the concourse when Lokomotiva Zagreb equalised, 4 minutes later. Leads are only worth what you do with them.
15 attempts, none of them in. He got into the right places all afternoon, which is the hard part, and did the easy part badly — and that is the version of a bad day a manager can live with.
78 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.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nikola Soldo 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.
85 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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Noa Godec will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Lokomotiva Zagreb the goodbyes have quietly begun.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Jakov-Anton Vasilj and Lokomotiva Zagreb agree another 2 years.
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
Mirko Sušak 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.
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 6 goals between Lokomotiva Zagreb and Hajduk Split, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
92 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.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.65 at 34, and nobody on the pitch was better.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Lokomotiva Zagreb is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nikola Soldo 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.
A player who expected to start watched it instead. The manager will call it a decision for the team; Leon Belcar will call it something else in private.
99 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.
Mirko Sušak 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.
Squad20 Oct 2036
Nikola Soldo 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.
Marked 9.38 — 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.
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.