Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Hrvace waiting with a shirt. Nobody at HNK Gorica is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason HNK Gorica will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what HNK Gorica can pretend not to have heard.
HNK Gorica had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Shakhtar, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
Patrik Mijić 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.
Squad5 Jul 2027
Words at HNK Gorica training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jurica Pršir 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.
HNK Gorica asked and Slavia Prague said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
17 appearances and 3 goals away from here, and a player the manager did not have in August. Loans are sent out hoping for exactly this and most of them do not deliver it.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager has not finished forgetting Bruno Bogojević's mistake
Stefan Perić 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 Jurica Pršir was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
6 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.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at HNK Gorica, and both men came out saying it was fine.
The loan was meant to give him football. 0 games and 0 goals later he is back at HNK Gorica no further forward, and everybody involved will explain why it was not their doing.
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 Domagoj Pavičić is on it.
In brief
Loan watchThe goals keep arriving from Fran Stunja’s exile
41 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. HNK Gorica lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Prosper Obah was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Mateo Leš trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
6 goals in 26 games at NK Krsko — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at HNK Gorica updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
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 Noel Bodetić is on it.
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.
A few words of the language, a friend at the next peg, and a training ground that has stopped feeling foreign. Nothing measurable, and everything visible on Saturdays.
A manager forgives a bad Saturday far more readily than a bad Tuesday, because one of them he can explain and the other one he chose. The reports this week have not been good.
Marijan Čabraja 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.
Squad5 Apr 2027
Words at HNK Gorica training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Prosper Obah 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 HNK Gorica, and 7 appearances in 12 say he has earned the hearing.
6 goals in 26 games at NK Krsko — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at HNK Gorica updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
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.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Zvonimir Šarlija and HNK Gorica agree another 3 years.
Patrik Mijić 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.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Marco Lovren has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Tomislav Babic is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Marco Orsic has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Marcelo Cop is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
A year in and the language has not come, the city has not opened up, and he eats alone more often than anybody at HNK Gorica would like to admit. It is showing on Saturdays.
6 goals in 26 games at NK Krsko — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at HNK Gorica updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
Words at HNK Gorica training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Prosper Obah 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.
HNK Gorica asked and Spartak Moscow said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
“I watch every HNK Gorica game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at NK Varazdin runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at HNK Gorica, another week without a signature from Théo Epailly.
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation HNK Gorica are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Ognjen Bakić trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
A year in and the city has not opened up, the language has not come, and lunch is eaten alone more often than anybody at HNK Gorica would admit. It shows on Saturdays.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” HNK Gorica have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Add another name to the list: BSK Bijelo Brdo have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Stefan Perić. The answer from HNK Gorica has not changed — yet.
Zvonimir Šarlija 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 offer went to Lokomotiva Zagreb this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
Squad11 Jan 2027
Prosper Obah 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.
HNK Gorica asked and NK Varazdin said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Everyone has stopped pretending: Sesvete will make the call about Domagoj Pavičić this week. HNK Gorica have a number in mind, and the number is not shy.
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 Wisdom Sule is on it.
The hardest thing about being 20 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Fran Stunja did not need any: 7.87, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around NK Krsko they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Aljaž Zalaznik is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
8 without a win is the sort of run that changes how a town talks about its club, and Dravinja were the afternoon it stopped. Nothing is fixed by one result and everything feels different by one.
NK Krsko had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at ND Gorica, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Šimun Šintić has pre-agreed a move away, which means every appearance between now and June is made by a man the club can no longer sell, and somebody upstairs will be asked why the contract was allowed to get here.
Niki Radovič 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 interest is real enough to have reached print. NK Krsko have said nothing, which in a transfer window is its own kind of answer.
Squad11 Jan 2027
Žan Petrovič 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.
8 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
The offer from Ilirija 1911 for Patrik Veselić was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. NK Krsko have done the hard part with ND Gorica, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
Sven Opačić 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.
Squad4 Jan 2027
Žan Petrovič 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 name of Jakob Štrukelj has come up in conversations NK Krsko were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
“It is not the end of the world and it is not good enough. Both of those are true.” The manager, after a 1‑1 draw, said the honest thing and then went to say it again inside.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Prosper Obah was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Zoran Arsenić trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. HNK Gorica know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
3 goals in 15 games at Jarun Zagreb — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at HNK Gorica updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Žan Petrovič was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Fran Stunja 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 supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 1‑3, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
The manager has re-ordered his thinking and Aleksa Đurasović has come out of it lower. He will be told it is temporary, and the players who have heard that before will avoid his eye.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Jure Zupan’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and NK Krsko needing him to play as if none of it matters.
Marked 8.30 at 20, in a side that makes no allowances for age. He did not need any, and he looked the least nervous man on the pitch.
Squad30 Nov 2026
Words at NK Krsko training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Žan Petrovič 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at NK Krsko this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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 20 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.
Conceding is one thing; the response is what tells you about a dressing room. Aljaž Zalaznik had NK Krsko level again within 2 minutes, and Tabor Sežana never got to play with a lead at all.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” NK Krsko have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
The hardest thing about being 20 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Fran Stunja did not need any: 7.67, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Niki Radovič 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.
Squad23 Nov 2026
Žan Petrovič 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.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Jure Sikosek after the 1‑1 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at NK Krsko, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Sven Opačić 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.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Nino Fancito has, at NK Krsko, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
Squad9 Nov 2026
Žan Petrovič 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.
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 board was up, the win was priced in, and then Ilirija 1911 scored. There is no worse minute to concede in and the ground emptied in the silence that follows one.
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.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 7 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Žan Petrovič 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.
Slovan Ljubljana left with the points after a 0‑1 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Squad26 Oct 2026
8 new faces, and NK Krsko 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.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑1, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
Nobody at NK Krsko is suggesting he is out of form. The manager simply wanted somebody with a different set of qualities for ninety specific minutes, and there is nothing a player can train to fix that.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Brinje Grosuplje in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
The hardest thing about being 20 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Fran Stunja did not need any: 8.19, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Niki Radovič and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Žan Petrovič 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.
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.
A midfielder is measured on whether the team functions when he is on the pitch, which is nearly impossible to see and completely obvious in retrospect. 12 actions, 7.13, and a manager who will not be substituting him again in a hurry.
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.
“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.
The dugout5 Oct 2026
The manager has not finished forgetting Tomaž Zakrajšek'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.