Marked for Esteban Riou
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
The dugout20 Mar 2028
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Squad20 Mar 2028
A falling-out at Uskok
Junior Bita and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad20 Mar 2028
Antonio Radonić 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.
Boardroom20 Mar 2028
161% of the income goes out in wages at Uskok
Every club in football 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 somebody has tried it.
The dugout20 Mar 2028
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Nikos Anastasiadis, and the manager let it.
The dugout20 Mar 2028
Andro Marušić has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Uskok 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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Player ratings17 Jan 2028
A brace, and Krešimir Radoš takes the afternoon — 9.12
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Krešimir Radoš provided it, and the 9.12 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Squad17 Jan 2028
Esteban Riou breaks a bone — 18 days out
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 18 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Squad17 Jan 2028
At 20, Krešimir Radoš is already the best thing here
An average of 7.27 in a first team he is several years too young for. Uskok have something, and by now the whole division has noticed.
Match15 Jan 2028
Uskok make it 4 in a row
Momentum is a hard thing to buy and an easy thing to lose, and right now Uskok have 4 straight wins of it.
Transfer targets17 Jan 2028
Uskok had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Istra 1961, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
Transfer targets17 Jan 2028
Uskok asked and Bjelovar said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Squad17 Jan 2028
Words at Uskok training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Antonio Radonić 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.
Squad17 Jan 2028
Words exchanged at Uskok
Josip Tomašević 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.
Match15 Jan 2028
Three points for Uskok, 2‑0 the final word against Radnik Krizevci in a contest settled by the finer margins.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad10 Jan 2028
Esteban Riou breaks a bone — 25 days out
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 25 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Player ratings10 Jan 2028
Krešimir Radoš, 20, plays like he has been here for years — 7.85
A mark of 7.85 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.
Player ratings10 Jan 2028
At 34 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 7.95 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Match8 Jan 2028
Nobody wants to play Uskok right now
3 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
Transfer targets10 Jan 2028
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.
Squad10 Jan 2028
Words at Uskok training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Vanja Vukmanović 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.
The terraces10 Jan 2028
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.
Match8 Jan 2028
It finished 2‑0, and it was Krešimir Radoš’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Uskok.
Player ratings10 Jan 2028
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.18, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match1 Jan 2028
Some goals win a match and some take one off somebody else. Krešimir Radoš scored in the 88th minute, Croatia Zmijavci had already begun thinking about the journey home, and Uskok took the lot.
Squad3 Jan 2028
A fracture rules Esteban Riou out for 32 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Uskok will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Boardroom3 Jan 2028
Pressure builds in the Uskok boardroom
The directors have stopped offering the manager public warmth. In football that is usually the stage before the short statement.
Player ratings3 Jan 2028
Krešimir Radoš, 19, plays like he has been here for years — 8.01
A mark of 8.01 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 19-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Squad3 Jan 2028
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. Uskok will be quietly delighted and privately nervous.
Market3 Jan 2028
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Squad3 Jan 2028
Tempers go at Uskok
Vanja Vukmanović 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.
Boardroom3 Jan 2028
Uskok counting the cost
The accounts make uncomfortable reading. Wages first and ambition second is the order of business at Uskok now.
Transfer targets3 Jan 2028
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.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Player ratings27 Dec 2027
A brace, and Krešimir Radoš takes the afternoon — 8.78
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Krešimir Radoš provided it, and the 8.78 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Market27 Dec 2027
“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 Uskok, and it is not being withdrawn.
The dugout27 Dec 2027
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Squad27 Dec 2027
Words exchanged at Uskok
Vanja Vukmanović 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.
Squad27 Dec 2027
A row about effort at Uskok
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Antonio Radonić was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The terraces27 Dec 2027
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.
Match25 Dec 2027
Three points for Uskok, 2‑0 the final word against Kustosija in a contest settled by the finer margins.
Boardroom27 Dec 2027
Wages eat 127% of everything Uskok earn
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.
The dugout27 Dec 2027
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
In brief
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The dugout
The manager’s verdict
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Squad
Krešimir Radoš, 19, is the weekend’s best young player
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Player ratings
Karlo Antunović runs at them all day
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Transfer targets7 Jun 2027
The deal with Hajduk Split 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.
Squad7 Jun 2027
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Uskok this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Transfer targets7 Jun 2027
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.
The dugout7 Jun 2027
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Squad7 Jun 2027
Josip Tomašević 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.
Transfer targets7 Jun 2027
Rudes 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.
Transfer targets7 Jun 2027
A loan move for Mateo Juričić is in the works
Uskok have made the call to Hajduk Split. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
Market7 Jun 2027
He is 20, and the scouting reports agree on the only line that matters: the ceiling. Signings like this are lottery tickets written by professionals.
Squad7 Jun 2027
Uskok are still strangers to each other
5 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.