Marked for Peter Dakka
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad30 Nov 2026
A fracture rules Slobodan Simović out for 103 days
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.
Player ratings30 Nov 2026
Successful dribbles: 38. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Market30 Nov 2026
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Radnicki 1923 is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Match28 Nov 2026
No end in sight to Radnicki 1923's wait for a win
4 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Radnicki 1923 has to find a result from somewhere.
Squad30 Nov 2026
David Buchta and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Match28 Nov 2026
0‑1 to Radnicki Nis, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Squad30 Nov 2026
“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.
The dugout30 Nov 2026
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 0‑1 Branislav Krsticic left the room before anybody could ask which.
The dugout30 Nov 2026
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad2 Nov 2026
A fracture rules Slobodan Simović out for 133 days
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.
Squad2 Nov 2026
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.
Market2 Nov 2026
Peter Dakka hands in a written request
“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.
Market2 Nov 2026
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Radnicki 1923 is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
The terraces2 Nov 2026
At 21 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.
Match31 Oct 2026
5 without a win is the sort of run that changes how a town talks about its club, and Radnik Surdulica were the afternoon it stopped. Nothing is fixed by one result and everything feels different by one.
Match31 Oct 2026
A 1‑0 win over Radnik Surdulica, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Squad2 Nov 2026
Luka Lijeskić named in the team of the month
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Luka Lijeskić is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
The dugout2 Nov 2026
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 1‑0, Branislav Krsticic could afford to be generous.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad5 Oct 2026
A fracture rules Slobodan Simović out for 161 days
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.
Squad5 Oct 2026
There were 7 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.
Market5 Oct 2026
Hasan Hilu has one foot out of the door
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Radnicki 1923 they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad5 Oct 2026
David Buchta and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Player ratings5 Oct 2026
Successful dribbles: 21. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Match3 Oct 2026
Crvena Zvezda left with the points after a 0‑2 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Squad5 Oct 2026
“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.
Boardroom5 Oct 2026
Wages swallow 112% of the Radnicki 1923 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
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Branislav Krsticic after 0‑2, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match1 Aug 2026
0‑5 against Cukaricki, and no complaints that would survive the replay. The manager spoke about character afterwards; the terraces used shorter words.
Squad3 Aug 2026
“The easiest signature of my career.” David Buchta and Radnicki 1923 agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad3 Aug 2026
David Buchta and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Peter Dakka gets the move he always wanted
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Peter Dakka has just signed for Radnicki 1923, and for once the answer mattered.
Transfer targets3 Aug 2026
Radnicki 1923 asked and UTC said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Words at Radnicki 1923 training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nikola Miličić 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.
Player ratings3 Aug 2026
Semir Alić runs at them all day
Successful dribbles: 17. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Boardroom3 Aug 2026
Nobody left the Radnicki 1923 dressing room in a hurry
The door stayed shut a long time after the final whistle. What was said in there is between them; whether it worked is between them and Saturday.
Market3 Aug 2026
“We are a long way apart, and pretending otherwise helps nobody.” Neither side is close, and the calendar is not on the club's side.