“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Hrvace can pretend not to have heard.
Squad24 May 2027
Duje Ušalj 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 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 Gregor Oblak is on 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 Hrvace, and both men came out saying it was fine.
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.
Fabijan Petričević 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.
Squad10 May 2027
Duje Ušalj 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 Hrvace 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.
In brief
The dugoutRoko Mavra asks for a word with the manager
Srđan Kuzmić 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Faad Sana was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
10 shut-outs in 21 games. A goalkeeper’s loan is judged on the afternoons when nothing happened at all, and Urban Trobec has been having a lot of them.
The demotion a club never announces and a dressing room always notices. Duje Korač is further from the side than he was, and the reason will not be given until he asks.
8 goals in 17 games at Hrvace — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at NK Domzale updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. NK Domzale know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at NK Domzale, and both men came out saying it was fine.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Hrvace this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“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 Hrvace will have to answer with minutes or with a transfer.
Nobody at Hrvace 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.
Vid Sesko and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad5 Apr 2027
Words at NK Domzale training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Artyom Fedorov 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.
10 shut-outs in 21 games. A goalkeeper’s loan is judged on the afternoons when nothing happened at all, and Urban Trobec has been having a lot of them.
6 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.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 19 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Duje Ušalj 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 Gregor Oblak is on it.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Daniel Ropar trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
“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 Hrvace know it.
Fabijan Petričević 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 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 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.
Vid Sesko and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad8 Mar 2027
Words at NK Domzale training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Faad Sana 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.
Loan watch8 Mar 2027
Urban Trobec’s loan is measured in nothing happening
10 clean sheets from 21 appearances at Hrvatski Dragovoljac. 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.
6 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.
0 appearances, 0 clean sheets, and a goalkeeper no further forward than the day he left. Whether that belongs to him, to the club that borrowed him or to the people who arranged it is the argument NK Domzale will have this month.
4 appearances and 0 goals is not a season away, it is a year lost. He is back at NK Domzale no further forward, and everybody involved will explain why it was not their fault.
Nobody at NK Domzale 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.
Denis Cerovec 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.
Squad1 Mar 2027
Duje Ušalj 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.
A change in the dugout is not one story, it is twenty-five of them. This is Sven Šunta's: he was somebody's player, and now he has to be somebody else's, starting from nothing.
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 Gregor Oblak is on it.
Position 11 and 17 points, and the table gets read bottom-up in this part of town. The calendar has stopped being a schedule and started being a countdown.
It finished 1-6. A cup exit is a disappointment; this was a public dismantling, and the difference between the two is the number of people who will still be talking about it in August.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Slaven Belupo is saying, and nobody at Hrvace is enjoying the guessing.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Hrvace this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 7 goals between Hrvace and Hajduk Split, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
Squad8 Feb 2027
Words at Hrvace training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Duje Ušalj 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.
Hrvace asked and Farul Constanța said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Luka Kambič 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.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at NK Domzale, and 0 appearances in 26 say he has earned the hearing.
5 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
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.
20 appearances away from home and 8 goals to show for them. Every one of them makes next summer's conversation a little more expensive.
Loan watch8 Feb 2027
Urban Trobec’s loan is measured in nothing happening
8 clean sheets from 18 appearances at Hrvatski Dragovoljac. 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.
Position 11 and 17 points, and the table gets read bottom-up in this part of town. The calendar has stopped being a schedule and started being a countdown.
The hardest thing about being 19 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Krešimir Radoš did not need any: 7.85, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
At 19 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Hrvace have done the hard part with NK Osijek, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
Hrvace had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at HNK Rijeka, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
“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 Hrvace know it.
A 3‑1 win over Croatia Zmijavci, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Hajduk Split have kept their man, and Hrvace go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
In brief
SquadWords at Hrvace training over how hard people work
NK Celje go through and NK Domzale go home, 2‑3 the scoreline that did it. The dressing room will call the league the priority now, because that is what dressing rooms say.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Koper waiting with a shirt. Nobody at NK Domzale is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at NK Domzale, and 0 appearances in 22 say he has earned the hearing.
The dugout11 Jan 2027
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 2‑3 Timi Sikosek left the room before anybody could ask which.
NK Domzale have made the call to Aluminij. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
Two goals and a mark of 8.82 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
11 without a win is the sort of run that changes how a town talks about its club, and Dubrava were the afternoon it stopped. Nothing is fixed by one result and everything feels different by one.
Squad14 Dec 2026
Duje Ušalj 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.
Maro Vrdoljak 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.
He is 22 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.
“I watch every NK Domzale game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Nafta 1903 runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
Squad14 Dec 2026
Faad Sana 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 NK Domzale 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.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Nikolay Sysuev signs something — a contract at NK Domzale or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Position 4, 21 points, and a run-in that decides whether next season has Thursday nights in it. Nobody is calling it a race yet, which is what people say during one.
Position 12 and 9 points, and the table gets read bottom-up in this part of town. The calendar has stopped being a schedule and started being a countdown.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Maik Prinsen has just signed for Hrvace, and for once the answer mattered.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Gregor Oblak was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Sesvete next, and one man in the Hrvace dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
It is the least glamorous business a club does and the reason seasons do not collapse in February. Maik Prinsen is here for the weeks when three men are injured and somebody still has to play.
Nobody at Hrvace 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.
Luka Kambič 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.
Squad16 Nov 2026
Words at NK Domzale training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Faad Sana 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.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at NK Domzale, and 0 appearances in 14 say he has earned the hearing.
5 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
Nobody at NK Domzale 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.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Žan Trivunčević’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and NK Domzale needing him to play as if none of it matters.
19 points from position 4. The title is somebody else’s business and the drop is somebody else’s problem; what is left is the argument about passports.
8 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Hrvace has to find a result from somewhere.
Player ratings9 Nov 2026
Gregor Oblak, 20, plays like he has been here for years — 7.75
A mark of 7.75 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 20-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Matej Grahovac was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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.
“There are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 1‑1, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.
Vid Sesko 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.
“I watch every NK Domzale game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Hrvace runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
The dugout9 Nov 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.” Timi Sikosek kept it short after the 1‑0 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
Nobody at NK Domzale 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.
6 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Duje Ušalj was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Maro Vrdoljak 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.
Position 12, 8 points, and every result so far reduced to one line. The second half of the season starts with the same squad and a different set of expectations.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Robert Sutalo after 1‑2, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Hrvace told Gregor Oblak something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
Luka Kambič 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.
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Timi Sikosek on a 1‑0 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
NK Celje next, and one man in the NK Domzale dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
The words a physio says slowly. 28 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at NK Domzale this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“I did not go to Nafta 1903 to sit and watch. I want to come back to NK Domzale and fight for my place.” 0 appearances in 9 matches say the rest.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Words at NK Domzale training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Faad Sana 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 is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. NK Domzale told Faad Sana something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at NK Domzale, and both men came out saying it was fine.
13 points from position 6. The title is somebody else’s business and the drop is somebody else’s problem; what is left is the argument about passports.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Player ratings5 Oct 2026
Gregor Oblak, 20, plays like he has been here for years — 7.79
A mark of 7.79 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 20-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
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.
Denis Cerovec 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.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Duje Ušalj 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.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Robert Sutalo after the 1‑1 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
2 goals to the good, and then a slow surrender of everything that had been earned. Gregor Oblak will not be the one blamed for it, but nobody at Hrvace escapes the conversation that follows a collapse like this.
Two goals and a mark of 8.46 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Hrvace this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
A goalkeeper’s error has no defender behind it to tidy it away. He knew before the ball crossed the line, the crowd knew a second later, and there is nothing anybody can say tonight.
Everybody at Hrvace saw it before anybody said it, which is how this always goes. At 39 the decline is real and measurable — 3 points — and the only question left is how the club handles somebody it owes a great deal to.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 20-year-old it feels ownership of. Gregor Oblak 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.
It needed Gregor Oblak to find the net to bring anything home at all: 2‑2 against BSK Bijelo Brdo, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
The dugout28 Sep 2026
The manager has not finished forgetting Matej Grahovac's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
Marked 7.89 at 19, in a side that makes no allowances for age. He did not need any, and he looked the least nervous man on the pitch.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Words at Hrvace training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Duje Ušalj 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. Iraklis have kept their man, and Hrvace go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
At 19 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.
“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 Hrvace will have to answer with minutes or with a transfer.
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Robert Sutalo on a 1‑0 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
He wheeled away like a man who had been carrying it for months, because he had. Hrvace have their signing off the mark and one press-conference question retired.
That is the business done at Hrvace 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.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Mura is saying, and nobody at Hrvace is enjoying the guessing.
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.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Words at Hrvace training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Sabo Gambo 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 Hrvace this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“I listened, I thought about it, and I am staying. That is the whole story.” The clubs had agreed a fee. Luka Lovric had not agreed to go, which turned out to be the part that mattered.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. NK Domzale have lost him in all but the paperwork.
Miha Vipotnik 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Primorje have kept their man, and NK Domzale go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
The name of Petar Kurtovic has come up in conversations NK Domzale were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Koper left with the points after a 0‑1 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
The dugout24 Aug 2026
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 0‑1 Timi Sikosek left the room before anybody could ask which.
“I listened, I thought about it, and I am staying. That is the whole story.” The clubs had agreed a fee. Gregor Oblak had not agreed to go, which turned out to be the part that mattered.
Christián Herc 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 thought about how hard another man trains, and Luka Lovric was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.