Nikola Miličić 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.
Squad7 May 2029
Mehmed Ćosić 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 have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Radnicki 1923 can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Nobody at Radnicki 1923 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.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until David Buchta signs something — a contract at Radnicki 1923 or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Stefan Šavija trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Radnicki 1923. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Radnicki 1923 will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
“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.
Squad16 Oct 2028
Words at Radnicki 1923 training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Meletios Mišković 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.
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.
Nobody at Radnicki 1923 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 dugout16 Oct 2028
Vanja Tomić is still being punished for one mistake
Nobody will confirm it and the team sheets confirm it every week. One error has bought him a spell as second choice that is already longer than the error deserved.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Milan Vidakov’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Radnicki 1923 needing him to play as if none of it matters.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Milan Vidakov signs something — a contract at Radnicki 1923 or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
He trains hard, says the right things and goes home to an empty flat. Nobody at Radnicki 1923 has done anything wrong, which is exactly what makes it so difficult to fix.
The words a physio says slowly. 126 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.
Niclas Eliasson 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.
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.
Nobody at Radnicki 1923 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 manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Mohamed Cissé has his answer from Radnicki 1923; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Radnicki 1923 know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Luka Lijeskić 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 thought about how hard another man trains, and Louay Ben Hassine was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.
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 Louay Ben Hassine is on it.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Radnicki 1923 know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
The list is a quiet document with a loud meaning. Miloš Mladenović may talk to anybody who asks, and everybody at the club understands what that means.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Radnicki 1923 can pretend not to have heard.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Radnicki 1923 this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad29 Nov 2027
Words at Radnicki 1923 training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Louay Ben Hassine 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 players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 2‑1, Nenad Radonjic could afford to be generous.
Nobody at Radnicki 1923 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.
“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 Radnicki 1923, and it is not being withdrawn.
“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 Radnicki 1923 know it.
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 am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Radnicki 1923, and 0 appearances in 18 say he has earned the hearing.
He won it back and then made something of it, which is two jobs and the reason the scoreline looks the way it does. 9 combined actions and a mark of 6.70, and not one of them will make a highlights package.
Mahmudu Bajo 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.
Marked 8.41 — 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.
Player ratings4 Oct 2027
Mahmudu Bajo was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.14. 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.
“Another season, another badge, another dressing room to win over. I would like one pre-season at Radnicki 1923 where somebody actually looks at me.” He belongs to Spartak Subotica until the spell ends; the argument is with the club that owns him.
Squad4 Oct 2027
A place in the month's best eleven for Milan Vidakov
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Milan Vidakov has come out of that comparison in the side, and Radnicki 1923 have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.