Marked for Duje Petkov
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad12 Oct 2026
17 days, the scan says, and scans are kinder than reality. The fixtures in that window have just become somebody else’s job.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Words exchanged at Zadar
Robert Rebic 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.
Squad12 Oct 2026
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.
The dugout12 Oct 2026
Ante Pjaca gets it from the manager
“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.
Market12 Oct 2026
Ivica Lovren is free to find somewhere else
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Zadar has been clear about where Ivica Lovren stands, which is more than many ever get.
Market12 Oct 2026
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Zadar, another week without a signature from Duje Petkov.
The dugout12 Oct 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.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Boris Knezevic 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.
The dugout12 Oct 2026
Ivica Lovren 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 Zadar, and both men came out saying it was fine.
In brief
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Market
The Niko Livaja question follows Zadar around
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Match
Zadar have something to play for
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Looking ahead
Looking ahead: Lucko at home
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market7 Sep 2026
Dario Orsic hands in a written request
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Zadar can pretend not to have heard.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
Window shuts: 1 in, 4 out at Zadar
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 1 arrived, 4 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Robert Rebic pulls a muscle — 15 days out
The injury that keeps coming back, keeps being rushed back from, and quietly costs more careers than the dramatic ones. 15 days is the estimate; the honest figure depends on whether anybody is patient.
Transfer targets7 Sep 2026
$550.0K was the most the club would pay and NK Osijek were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Tempers go at Zadar
Robert Rebic 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.
Transfer targets7 Sep 2026
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Piast have kept their man, and Zadar go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Somebody has moved past him. It is not a dropping and it is worse than one, because a dropping is about a Saturday and this is about where he stands.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Words at Zadar training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Dario Orsic 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.
Market7 Sep 2026
Dugopolje are about to pick up the phone
A conversation is coming this week. Zadar will put a number on him, and from there it stops being football and becomes arithmetic.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Match19 Aug 2026
Zadar through in the cup
A 2‑0 win over Imotski, and the draw for the next round can be watched with some interest for once.
Squad24 Aug 2026
The words a physio says slowly. 25 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.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
A brace, and Mario Corluka takes the afternoon — 9.21
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Mario Corluka provided it, and the 9.21 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Marin Cop could not have asked for more on his first appearance — 7.24
Debuts are survived rather than enjoyed. This one was enjoyed: 7.24, 0 goals, and a manager already being asked whether he starts again next week.
Squad24 Aug 2026
6 saves, and a scoreline the ten men in front of him had no right to. Goalkeepers only get noticed on the bad days; this was one of the other ones.
Market24 Aug 2026
Marin Grbic hands in a written request
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Zadar can pretend not to have heard.
Transfer targets24 Aug 2026
Everything agreed with Werder Bremen, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
Transfer targets24 Aug 2026
Zadar had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Dinamo Zagreb, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
Squad24 Aug 2026
A falling-out at Zadar
Robert Rebic and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Player ratings3 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 26. 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.
Market3 Aug 2026
Gomel come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Zadar did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Tempers go at Zadar
Robert Rebic 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.
Squad3 Aug 2026
A row about effort at Zadar
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Duje Petkov was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Player ratings3 Aug 2026
Mario Corluka was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.15. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
Squad3 Aug 2026
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Kristijan Vrsaljko commits to Zadar for another 2 years.
Match1 Aug 2026
Zadar caught on 94 minutes
The board was up, the win was priced in, and then Lucko scored. There is no worse minute to concede in and the ground emptied in the silence that follows one.
Transfer targets3 Aug 2026
Orenburg 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.
Transfer targets3 Aug 2026
A loan enquiry to Dinamo Zagreb: cover, or a look at somebody the club cannot afford to buy yet. Either way the answer will come back inside the week.