Lovro Gubijan 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.
Dugo Selo asked and Hajduk Split 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 thought about how hard another man trains, and Tomislav Grdenić was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Dinamo Zagreb 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.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Dugo Selo, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Nobody at Dugo Selo 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.
The words a physio says slowly. 39 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.
Squad13 Mar 2028
Words at Dugo Selo training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Šimun Grgić 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.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Matej Gagulić has his answer from Dugo Selo; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
Nobody has barred the club from spending; it simply has nothing to spend that it has not first raised. Every incoming name comes with an outgoing one attached.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Tomislav Grdenić 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 Marko Kovacevic is on it.
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.
Bruno Međimorec 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.
Squad1 Nov 2027
Šimun Grgić 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.
“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 Dugo Selo know it.
The borrowing is past what the bank agreed, which is the line where a debt stops being how football is financed and starts being a problem. Every phone-in in this town will quote the figure for the next five years.
31 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Dugo Selo lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
“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 Dugo Selo, and it is not being withdrawn.
Bruno Međimorec and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad15 Mar 2027
Words at Dugo Selo training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Tin Šarkanj 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.
He trains hard, says the right things and goes home to an empty flat. Nobody at Dugo Selo has done anything wrong, which is exactly what makes it so difficult to fix.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Dugo Selo. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
1 for Luka Romac, marked 7.57, and a centre-half's name in the part of the report he normally only reaches by mistake. He will not be allowed to forget it in the dressing room for a month.
8 without a win is the sort of run that changes how a town talks about its club, and Radnik Krizevci were the afternoon it stopped. Nothing is fixed by one result and everything feels different by one.
Bruno Međimorec 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.
Squad7 Dec 2026
Šimun Grgić 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 23 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Luka Romac. 1‑0 against Radnik Krizevci, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Dugo Selo are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Dugo Selo this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad16 Nov 2026
Words at Dugo Selo training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Šimun Grgić 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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Dugo Selo know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
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 Tin Šarkanj has written the date down.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Andraž Sotelšek trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
7 without a win is the sort of run that changes how a town talks about its club, and Lucko were the afternoon it stopped. Nothing is fixed by one result and everything feels different by one.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Bruno Međimorec was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Lovro Gubijan 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.