Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Mihael Briški 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.
Nikola Rodin 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 manager may talk to whoever he likes and may pay nobody. A squad survives a window like this by borrowing, by promoting, and by hoping the injuries land somewhere else.
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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Leo Perić trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
The new man at Trnje has worked with Denis Ceraj before and it went well. He arrives with a view of the player already formed, which is worth more than any pre-season.
Hrvatski Dragovoljac next, and one man in the Trnje dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Lukas Zahora did not need any: 7.62, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Luigi Mišević will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Trnje the goodbyes have quietly begun.
5 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.
This is not rotation. Seth Annink has not been in the manager's plans for some time, and nobody at Trnje is pretending otherwise.
Squad13 Nov 2028
Nikola Rodin 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 34, 3 points below where he was, and a body that has started charging interest. It happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph on this page.
Minute 88, against Djakovo Croatia, and a goal that felt like a win to everybody who had stayed. It was a draw. Nobody leaving the ground will describe it as one.
Josip Perišić 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.
Half the programme played, position 11, 19 on the board. Doubling it is the sum every supporter has done and the only one nobody at the club will do out loud.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Trnje they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
This is not rotation. Seth Annink has not been in the manager's plans for some time, and nobody at Trnje is pretending otherwise.
Squad16 Oct 2028
Mihael Briški 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.
Nikola Rodin 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.
7 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 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.
The new man at Trnje has worked with Denis Ceraj before and it went well. He arrives with a view of the player already formed, which is worth more than any pre-season.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Solin in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Lukas Zahora did not need any: 7.87, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
This is money that keeps the lights on rather than money that buys a centre-half, and the difference is the whole story. A club funded by its owner rather than by its football has exactly one conversation left ahead of it.
Successful dribbles: 18. 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nikola Rodin 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.
Squad2 Oct 2028
Lukas Zahora is the division's best young player this month
At 21 he has spent a month being better than everybody his age in the league, which is a different and harder thing than one good afternoon. Trnje will try very hard not to make too much of it.
“I respect the manager and I am not going to sit here and pretend I am happy.” It is the most common sentence in football and it has never once been the end of a story.
The dugout2 Oct 2028
The manager’s verdict
“I am not going to get carried away and I will not let them either. It was a good day. There will be harder ones.” Stipe Vukas kept it short after the 1‑0 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
Marked 8.16 at 21, in a side that makes no allowances for age. He did not need any, and he looked the least nervous man on the pitch.
Squad25 Sep 2028
Mihael Briški 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 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.
The embargo bars a fee being paid for a player, whatever the manager thinks the squad needs. Every rumour printed about this club between now and its lifting is a rumour about a deal that cannot happen.
Josip Perišić 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 new man at Trnje has worked with Denis Ceraj before and it went well. He arrives with a view of the player already formed, which is worth more than any pre-season.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Istra 1961 waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Trnje is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Successful dribbles: 26. 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.
7.97, 1 on the scoresheet, and the specific comedy of a back-four player celebrating like somebody who does this every week. He does not, and that is exactly why the ground reacted the way it did.
Boardroom4 Sep 2028
Deadline passes with 13 signed and 14 gone
That is the business done at Trnje until the window opens again. Whether it was enough will be answered on Saturdays rather than in a column, and the first Saturday is close.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Maro Kosović has, at Trnje, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Leo Perić. 3‑1 against Varteks, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
The gap in the accounts was filled from upstairs again. Supporters are entitled to be grateful and to ask what happens the month it is not, and both feelings arrive together.
Squad4 Sep 2028
Mihael Briški 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 words a physio says slowly. 109 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.
“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 Trnje, and it is not being withdrawn.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Trnje is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Mihael Briški 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Bjelovar have kept their man, and Trnje go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Trnje this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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 Fran Petković is on it.
The words a physio says slowly. 138 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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Tijn Baltussen will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Trnje the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Leonard Vuk was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager makes an example of Bas Brouwers
41 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Trnje lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Mihael Briški 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.
7.53, 1 on the scoresheet, and the specific comedy of a back-four player celebrating like somebody who does this every week. He does not, and that is exactly why the ground reacted the way it did.
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 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 dugout13 Dec 2027
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 1‑2 defeat, delivered by Stipe Vukas to a room that had heard them before.
Nobody at Trnje 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.
Nobody at Trnje 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.
Nikola Čurćija 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.
Squad11 Oct 2027
Luigi Mišević 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.
Nobody at Trnje 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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Vedran Dalić trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Nobody on the board has said anything against the manager, which is the point — they have stopped saying anything for him either.
Squad24 May 2027
Leonard Vuk 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.
Josip Perišić 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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Vedran Dalić trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Antonio Azinović has written the date down.
In brief
SquadThe training reports on Vedran Dalić are not good