Marked for Stefan Nikolić
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad22 Feb 2027
A knee injury of the worst kind for Ivan Djuricic
35 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Loznica lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad22 Feb 2027
Đorđe Šušnjar 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.
Match20 Feb 2027
0‑2 to Dinamo Vranje, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
The dugout22 Feb 2027
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Boardroom22 Feb 2027
Wages eat 128% of everything Loznica 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.
Squad22 Feb 2027
Words at Loznica training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Hameed Aderoju 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 dugout22 Feb 2027
“I could talk about decisions and I could talk about luck. I will not. We lost.” The manager, 0‑2, and a press conference that lasted four minutes.
Squad22 Feb 2027
6 new faces, and Loznica 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.
Player ratings22 Feb 2027
Jeremy Sivi beats them one at a time
Successful dribbles: 14. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match2 Jan 2027
No end in sight to Loznica's wait for a win
6 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Loznica has to find a result from somewhere.
Squad4 Jan 2027
There were 6 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Squad4 Jan 2027
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. Loznica will be quietly delighted and privately nervous.
Squad4 Jan 2027
Words exchanged at Loznica
Đorđe Šušnjar 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.
Match2 Jan 2027
Beaten 1‑3, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Transfer targets4 Jan 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 dugout4 Jan 2027
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Squad4 Jan 2027
A row about effort at Loznica
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Hameed Aderoju was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout4 Jan 2027
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Filip Sergej after 1‑3, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad9 Nov 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for David Dunđerski
65 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Loznica lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Match7 Nov 2026
7 matches without a win for Loznica
The run now stands at 7, and the questions being asked around Loznica are no longer polite ones.
Match7 Nov 2026
Loznica cannot find the net
3 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
The terraces9 Nov 2026
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Mateja Premović 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.
Squad9 Nov 2026
Đorđe Šušnjar 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.
Player ratings9 Nov 2026
Successful dribbles: 15. 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 dugout9 Nov 2026
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Filip Sergej after the 0‑0 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
Match7 Nov 2026
Ninety minutes, two goalkeepers with clean gloves, and not one finish worth keeping. OFK Vršac will be the happier side with the point.
The dugout9 Nov 2026
Nikola Tedić knocks on the manager’s door
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Nikola Tedić trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad2 Nov 2026
David Dunđerski damages knee ligaments — 73 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 73 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.
Match31 Oct 2026
6 matches without a win for Loznica
The run now stands at 6, and the questions being asked around Loznica are no longer polite ones.
The dugout2 Nov 2026
Simão Pedro: that is not what I was promised
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Loznica have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Match31 Oct 2026
Beaten 0‑2, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Boardroom2 Nov 2026
140% of the income goes out in wages at Loznica
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.
Squad2 Nov 2026
Hameed Aderoju 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 dugout2 Nov 2026
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑2, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
Player ratings2 Nov 2026
Successful dribbles: 14. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Looking ahead2 Nov 2026
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Stefan Nikolić’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Loznica needing him to play as if none of it matters.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad19 Oct 2026
88 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Loznica lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Maid Ahmed is 20, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Match17 Oct 2026
4 matches without a win for Loznica
The run now stands at 4, and the questions being asked around Loznica are no longer polite ones.
Match17 Oct 2026
1‑3 to Borac Čačak, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Everybody saw it before anybody said it. At 34 the numbers say 3 points down on what he was, and the question for Loznica is how to handle a man they owe a great deal.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Words exchanged at Loznica
Strahinja Mladenović 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 dugout19 Oct 2026
The manager makes an example of Mateja Premović
“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.
The dugout19 Oct 2026
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 1‑3 defeat, delivered by Filip Sergej to a room that had heard them before.
The dugout19 Oct 2026
Maid Ahmed knocks on the manager’s door
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Maid Ahmed trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad5 Oct 2026
102 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Loznica lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Player ratings5 Oct 2026
At 34 every good afternoon gets called a throwback, and this one was: 7.82, and nobody on the pitch better.
Squad5 Oct 2026
At 22 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
Squad5 Oct 2026
A falling-out at Loznica
Godswill Vadze and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Match3 Oct 2026
Whatever happens, Loznica do not lose
6 games unbeaten now. Some were earned and some were survived, but a habit is forming — and habits are the hardest thing in football to play against.
Squad5 Oct 2026
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Loznica can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Boardroom5 Oct 2026
Wages swallow 158% of the Loznica income
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.
The dugout5 Oct 2026
Ranko Puškić dropped after a run of poor form
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
Match3 Oct 2026
It needed Đorđe Šušnjar to find the net to bring anything home at all: 1‑1 against Zemun, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.