A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Zadar will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
“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 The request is on a desk at Zadar, and it is not being withdrawn.
Add another name to the list: Slaven Belupo have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Robert Rebic. The answer from Zadar has not changed — yet.
Niko Livaja and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad11 Jan 2027
Robert Rebic 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Dinamo Zagreb have kept their man, and Zadar go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
At 35, 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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Ivica Lovren 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.” Mato Babic on a 3‑1 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
Position 3, 26 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.
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.
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.
Cibalia left with the points after a 1‑3 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Squad7 Dec 2026
Krešimir Radoš is the division's best young player this month
At 18 he has spent a month being better than everybody his age in the league, which is a different and harder thing than one good afternoon. Zadar will try very hard not to make too much of it.
The dugout7 Dec 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 1‑3 Mato Babic left the room before anybody could ask which.
Niko Livaja 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.
Player ratings9 Nov 2026
Mario Corluka was on a different afternoon to everybody else
9.72. 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.
Squad9 Nov 2026
Robert Rebic 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.
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.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager’s verdict
The dugoutIvica Lovren has become a man the manager trusts
A brace, and Mario Corluka takes the afternoon — 9.23
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Mario Corluka provided it, and the 9.23 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Niko Livaja and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Robert Rebic 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.
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.
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.
“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.
“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.
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 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 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.
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.
A 2‑0 win over Cibalia, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
Marin Kovac was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.08. 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.
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Mato Babic on a 2‑0 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Boris Knezevic 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 wheeled away like a man who had been carrying it for months, because he had. Zadar have their signing off the mark and one press-conference question retired.
Everything was agreed until it was not, and Goran Petkov reports back to Zadar with a summer to forget. Neither club is saying who walked away from the table.
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.
Beaten 0‑1, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
The dugout14 Sep 2026
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 0‑1 defeat, delivered by Mato Babic to a room that had heard them before.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Dario Orsic 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.
Successful dribbles: 14. 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.
“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.
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.
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.
$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.
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.
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.
16 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Zadar lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
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.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Robert Rebic 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. KV Mechelen have kept their man, and Zadar go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
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.
“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.
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.
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.
“I know what people will say. I know what I want, and it is here.” Arsenal Dzerzhinsk had the fee agreed and the shirt ready; they did not have the player, and now they will not.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Orenburg is saying, and nobody at Zadar is enjoying the guessing.
Lokomotiva Zagreb pay $1.3M, and the deal is done. The number reads well on a balance sheet; whether it reads well on the pitch is next season's question.
$290.0K was the most the club would pay and Sesvete 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.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Robert Rebic 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: 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.
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.
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.
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.