Marked for Domagoj Livaja
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Market14 Sep 2026
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Lucko can pretend not to have heard.
Match12 Sep 2026
8 matches without a win for Lucko
The run now stands at 8, and the questions being asked around Lucko are no longer polite ones.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 29. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Match12 Sep 2026
Lucko cannot find the net
7 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Words at Lucko training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ancelmo 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.
Squad14 Sep 2026
“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.
Match12 Sep 2026
0‑1 to Hrvatski Dragovoljac, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Squad14 Sep 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Lucko this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Market14 Sep 2026
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Lucko, another week without a signature from Jon McLaughlin.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad17 Aug 2026
Tempers go at Lucko
Norman Díaz 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 terraces17 Aug 2026
Lucko spend $61.0K on the signing the town wanted
It is the rarest sequence in football: supporters ask for something, and the club goes and does it. $61.0K for Domagoj Livaja, and for one week nobody is complaining about anything.
Market17 Aug 2026
Domagoj Livaja is 20, and Lucko 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.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Eugen Ciban dropped after a run of poor form
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 13. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Match15 Aug 2026
Nil-nil, and few chances worth the name. Dugopolje came to defend and left with exactly what they came for.
Squad17 Aug 2026
He trains hard, says the right things and goes home to an empty flat. Nobody at Lucko has done anything wrong, which is exactly what makes it so difficult to fix.
Squad17 Aug 2026
The plan did not have a place for Tin Karamatić
Nobody at Lucko 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.
Market17 Aug 2026
The best deals are the ones the accountants never notice. Santiago D'abarno arrives at Lucko with his wages the only cost and something to prove the only clause.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 38. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Match15 Aug 2026
Zadar win it in stoppage time
The board had gone up, the arguing had started, and then the ball was in the net in the 91th minute. Sibenik will replay every second of the added time for a week.
Market17 Aug 2026
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Squad17 Aug 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Zadar this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match15 Aug 2026
Sibenik made Zadar work for it, but the scoreboard read 4‑2 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Market17 Aug 2026
Domagoj Livaja has left for Lucko in a $61.0K deal. The accountants are pleased; the supporters are less certain.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Words at Zadar training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Babacar Diallo 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 ratings17 Aug 2026
Ninety minutes of Marin Simunovic at his very best
Marked 8.34. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Zadar.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
A performance of 8.09 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
In brief
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Squad
Mateo Barisic gets it from the manager
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Squad
5 new faces, and Zadar are still learning each other
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Market
Zadar bring in an old head