Marked for David Ivankić
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market28 Jun 2027
“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 The request is on a desk at Croatia Zmijavci, and it is not being withdrawn.
Transfer targets28 Jun 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 dugout28 Jun 2027
The manager makes an example of Ivan Kargotić
“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.
Squad28 Jun 2027
Words at Croatia Zmijavci training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Tomislav Gudelj 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.
Squad28 Jun 2027
43 days, the scan says, and scans are kinder than reality. The fixtures in that window have just become somebody else’s job.
Squad28 Jun 2027
David Ivankić and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad8 Feb 2027
A knee injury of the worst kind for Amar Zahirović
19 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Croatia Zmijavci lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The dugout8 Feb 2027
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Croatia Zmijavci may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Transfer targets8 Feb 2027
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. MFK Michalovce have kept their man, and Croatia Zmijavci go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Squad8 Feb 2027
Lev Lenssen 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.
Squad8 Feb 2027
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Croatia Zmijavci this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The dugout8 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.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match19 Dec 2026
19 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.
Squad21 Dec 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Amar Zahirović
72 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Croatia Zmijavci lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Match21 Dec 2026
Position 12, 13 points, and a fixture list with fewer games left in it than excuses. The arithmetic is not cruel yet, but it has stopped being kind.
Match19 Dec 2026
Karlovac 1919 left with the points after a 0‑2 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Player ratings21 Dec 2026
Successful dribbles: 19. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Looking ahead21 Dec 2026
Both clubs in the mire, one fixture between them, and a ground that will be louder and more frightened than at any point in the season. Croatia Zmijavci know what is at stake and so does everybody in the away end.
Squad21 Dec 2026
David Ivankić and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
The dugout21 Dec 2026
“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 dugout21 Dec 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 0‑2 defeat, delivered by Duje Stanisic to a room that had heard them before.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match31 Oct 2026
The run now stands at 12, and the questions being asked around Croatia Zmijavci are no longer polite ones.
Player ratings2 Nov 2026
Successful dribbles: 18. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
Match31 Oct 2026
Conceding is one thing; the response is what tells you about a dressing room. Ivan Matiazh had Croatia Zmijavci level again within 2 minutes, and Dubrava never got to play with a lead at all.
Squad2 Nov 2026
David Ivankić 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.
Match31 Oct 2026
A 1‑1 draw with Dubrava leaves the dressing room somewhere between relief and regret.
The dugout2 Nov 2026
“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.
Squad2 Nov 2026
The captaincy has been taken off Christian Ilić. Croatia Zmijavci will call it a decision about the team; a dressing room reads it as a verdict on a man.
The dugout2 Nov 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Duje Stanisic was not hiding it after 1‑1, and nobody in the Croatia Zmijavci dressing room was either.
The dugout2 Nov 2026
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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
Deadline passes with 29 signed and 18 gone
That is the business done at Croatia Zmijavci 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.
Transfer targets7 Sep 2026
Everything agreed with Universitatea Craiova, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
Transfer targets7 Sep 2026
Croatia Zmijavci have gone to Lucko with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Ivan Matiazh 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.
Transfer targets7 Sep 2026
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Pogon have kept their man, and Croatia Zmijavci go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Four or five weekends of consistency, measured against everybody else in the division. A quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
The dugout7 Sep 2026
Ivan Kargotić knocks on the manager's door
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Croatia Zmijavci, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Squad7 Sep 2026
No place for Matej Tomić in the new shape
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Croatia Zmijavci are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
Looking ahead7 Sep 2026
Rudes next, and one man in the Croatia Zmijavci dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad31 Aug 2026
David Ivankić arrives at the club he grew up with
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. David Ivankić has, at Croatia Zmijavci, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
Match29 Aug 2026
The run now stands at 4, and the questions being asked around Croatia Zmijavci are no longer polite ones.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Ivan Matiazh and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Transfer targets31 Aug 2026
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.
Transfer targets31 Aug 2026
Croatia Zmijavci have made the call to Universitatea Craiova. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
Market31 Aug 2026
Denis Čavlek is 19, and Croatia Zmijavci have signed him for the player he will be rather than the one he is. The first team can wait; the point of a deal like this is the years it buys.
Market31 Aug 2026
Matej Tomić is 18, and Croatia Zmijavci have signed him for the player he will be rather than the one he is. The first team can wait; the point of a deal like this is the years it buys.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Marked 7.21 on an afternoon he ran from the first whistle to the last. Whatever else went wrong, Croatia Zmijavci had the best player on the pitch.
The dugout31 Aug 2026
“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.