126 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. IMT lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“I listened, I thought about it, and I am staying. That is the whole story.” The clubs had agreed a fee. Vukašin Jovanović had not agreed to go, which turned out to be the part that mattered.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Voždovac waiting with a shirt. Nobody at IMT 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 IMT 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 IMT can pretend not to have heard.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Mateja Vukomanović will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around IMT the goodbyes have quietly begun.
The deal with Vojvodina is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Universitatea Craiova is saying, and nobody at IMT is enjoying the guessing.
The words a physio says slowly. 134 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.
A bad atmosphere can be waited out. A group of people meeting afterwards to decide what to do about it cannot, and everybody in the building knows which stage this is.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason IMT will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
“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 The request is on a desk at IMT, and it is not being withdrawn.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. IMT have lost him in all but the paperwork.
The offer from AEL for Kadir Gicić 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.
The deal with Shakhtar is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
162 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. IMT lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
It has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Napredak waiting with a shirt. Nobody at IMT is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
“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 IMT, and it is not being withdrawn.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at IMT heard it as anything else.
IMT had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Viktoria Plzen, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
The rules permit it and it stings anyway. Vuk Borović has agreed terms with Jedinstvo Ub for the summer, and until then he pulls on this shirt as a player who has already chosen his next one.
Iván Martos 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 words a physio says slowly. 88 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.
The board have said in public what they had been saying in private. Results between now and the next meeting decide it, and everybody in the building knows the arithmetic.
Nothing has been announced and everybody understands what it means. A board that summons the whole football department on a Tuesday morning is a board that has stopped believing the problem will fix itself.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Vladimir Radočaj was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Every squad is half players the manager chose and half players he inherited. Ognjen Čančarević was chosen, the man who chose him has gone, and he starts again from nothing under the next one.
Iván Martos 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.
Everybody saw it before anybody said it. At 36 the numbers say 3 points down on what he was, and the question for IMT is how to handle a man they owe a great deal.
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 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 Charly Keita is on it.
32 appearances at FC Bihor Oradea and the goals have stopped going in. IMT lent out a goalkeeper and are watching somebody else’s season get better every week.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Vladimir Radočaj was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. IMT told Charly Keita something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Iván Martos signs something — a contract at IMT or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Mateja Zuvić trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
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 Stefan Šapić is on it.
5 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at IMT has to find a result from somewhere.
Loan watch28 Feb 2028
Kadir Gicić’s loan is measured in nothing happening
17 clean sheets from 30 appearances at FC Bihor Oradea. That is the whole of a goalkeeper’s job done properly, and it is being done a long way from the club that owns him.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at IMT this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The goal that put Vojvodina ahead was still being replayed on the concourse when IMT equalised, 3 minutes later. Leads are only worth what you do with them.
1‑1, and both dressing rooms will call it two points lost. A draw that asked plenty of questions and answered none of them.
The dugout28 Feb 2028
The view from the dugout
“We did not lose. Some weeks that is all you get, and I would rather have the point than not.” Milan Stojkovic chose the glass-half-full version of 1‑1; the supporters left with the other one.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Radosław Wypart 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.
In brief
The dugoutCharly Keita has become a man the manager trusts
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at IMT this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Radosław Wypart was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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 Charly Keita is on it.
“I did not come here to warm up in front of people.” He is out of contract eventually, he is old enough to count the weeks, and IMT will have to give him a reason to stay or an exit.
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.
Iván Martos 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 had been thinking. Vladimir Radočaj 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.
Successful dribbles: 20. 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.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Mateja Vukomanović and IMT agree another 4 years.
The dugout18 Oct 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 0‑2 defeat, delivered by Milan Stojkovic to a room that had heard them before.
Borac Čačak next, and one man in the IMT dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at IMT this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Spartak Moscow have kept their man, and IMT go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
100 games in these colours. Service of that kind gets rarer every season, and the crowd knows it.
Squad13 Sep 2027
13 new faces, and IMT 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 dugout13 Sep 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 1‑3 defeat, delivered by Milan Stojkovic to a room that had heard them before.
The clubs have shaken hands with Radnicki Nis; the player has not yet. Personal terms are next, and personal terms are where more deals die than anybody prints.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Henrik Kojen Stubbe has just signed for Ušće, and for once the answer mattered.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: another club keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Miloš Bakić was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Ušće asked and Jedinstvo Ub said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Aleksa Mitić 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.
Jedinstvo Ub have been asked whether they would lend him. Loans are agreed quickly or not at all, and this one will be one or the other by the weekend.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Ušće will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Milan Kolarević was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
At 39, 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.
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.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Ušće, and both men came out saying it was fine.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Ušće will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Milan Kolarević 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.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Ušće have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Milan Kolarević was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Ušće this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
It happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph a local paper has to write. 39 years old, 3 points down on where he was, and a body that has started charging interest on a career.
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.
Everybody saw it before anybody said it. At 36 the numbers say 3 points down on what he was, and the question for Ušće is how to handle a man they owe a great deal.
“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 Ušće know it.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Milan Kolarević 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.
“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.
Squad22 Mar 2027
5 new faces, and Ušće 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.
19 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Ušće lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
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 Mateja Vukomanović is on it.
“I did not come here to warm up in front of people.” He is out of contract eventually, he is old enough to count the weeks, and Ušće will have to give him a reason to stay or an exit.
Something was said to Luka Mladenović and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Mateja Vukomanović trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Milan Kolarević 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.
5 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.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Lazar Mladenovic after the 1‑1 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
“I have done everything asked of me in training and it has not changed a thing on a Saturday.” The most familiar complaint in football, and one Ušće will have to answer with minutes or with a transfer.
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Ušće this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Ušće can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Lazar Mladenovic after 0‑1, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
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.
A brace, and Miloš Bakić takes the afternoon — 9.24
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Miloš Bakić provided it, and the 9.24 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Boardroom1 Feb 2027
Deadline passes with 5 signed and 0 gone
That is the business done at Ušće 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.
Milan Kolarević 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Zeleznicar Pancevo have kept their man, and Ušće go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
He is 21 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.
He found out with everybody else, an hour before kick-off, from a sheet of paper on a wall. Nobody at Ušće pretended it was anything other than a decision about him.
The deal with Vojvodina is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
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 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.
Squad25 Jan 2027
7 new faces, and Ušće 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 system has changed and his position has not. A footballer can improve his form; he cannot improve the manager’s formation, and that is the whole of the problem.
Andre Grey is 20, and Ušće 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.
A player who expected to start watched it instead. The manager will call it a decision for the team; Mateja Vukomanović will call it something else in private.
Ušće asked and Radnik Surdulica said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Kadir Gicić 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.
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.
The dugout18 Jan 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 0‑2 defeat, delivered by Lazar Mladenovic to a room that had heard them before.
Position 3, 33 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
Player ratings21 Dec 2026
David Đokić, 17, plays like he has been here for years — 7.97
A mark of 7.97 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 17-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
3 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 18 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Milan Kolarević 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.
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Lazar Mladenovic on a 2‑0 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
3 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
Match21 Nov 2026
Another one collected away from home
4 on the bounce on the road for Ušće. The coaches leave early, arrive at unlovely grounds in the dark, and keep coming home with three points.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Milan Kolarević 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 Ušće this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Milan Kolarević 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Milan Kolarević. 1‑0 against Trayal Kruševac, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
7.83, and no serious argument from anybody who was there. Ušće had eleven men on the pitch and one of them decided how it went.
The dugout23 Nov 2026
The view from the dugout
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” Lazar Mladenovic, on a 1‑0 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
The hardest thing about being 20 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Andrej Petrović did not need any: 7.84, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Aleksa Cvetković 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.
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.
17 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
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.
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 1‑0, Lazar Mladenovic could afford to be generous.
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Ušće are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Milan Kolarević was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Behind, and beaten by any honest reading, until minute 95. Grafičar had the points in their pocket and a corner of the ground still believed, which is generally when it happens.
“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.
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 shape wanted a different profile against this opponent, which is a real football answer and no comfort at all to the man it is about. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
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.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Ušće told Andrej Petrović something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
Bogdan Sergej 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.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against FAP Priboj in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Ušće, and both men came out saying it was fine.
He looks like a man who lives here now rather than one who is working here. It took most of a season, and at Ušće the difference is visible from the back of the stand.
In brief
Looking aheadLooking ahead: the trip to FAP Priboj
Milan Kolarević 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.
It happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph a local paper has to write. 38 years old, 3 points down on where he was, and a body that has started charging interest on a career.
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.
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 dugout5 Oct 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Lazar Mladenovic was not hiding it after 0‑0, and nobody in the Ušće dressing room was either.
Nothing is announced when this happens and everybody knows. He is a bigger part of the plan at Ušće than he was a month ago, and the training ground worked that out before the team sheet said so.
The crowd waited for a goal that never came. OFK Vršac defended in numbers and left with what they came for, and the two sides could be playing still without troubling a scorer.
The shape wanted a different profile against this opponent, which is a real football answer and no comfort at all to the man it is about. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
Successful dribbles: 22. 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 players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 1‑0, Lazar Mladenovic could afford to be generous.
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 Mateja Vukomanović is on it.
Ninety specific minutes wanted a different sort of player, and the manager picked one. He is not out of form and he is not in the side, and both are true.
The hardest thing about being 20 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Miloš Bakić did not need any: 7.86, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Milan Kolarević was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Ušće asked and Grafičar said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
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.
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 dugout14 Sep 2026
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.” Lazar Mladenovic kept it short after the 1‑0 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
At 20 he is being measured against the rest of the division's kids and coming out in front. The senior version of this award is where the club would like this to lead.
Ušće close the window on a squad of their own making
27 in and 17 out, and no more changes for months. The manager has what he has, the supporters have their opinion of it, and the table will have the last word.
Ušće asked and Partizan said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Nothing is announced when this happens and everybody knows. He is a bigger part of the plan at Ušće than he was a month ago, and the training ground worked that out before the team sheet said so.
He is doing things on a Saturday afternoon that nobody around him can answer, which is flattering for about one season and a problem after that. Ušće will not keep him by pretending otherwise.