The clubs have shaken hands with Dugopolje; the player has not yet. Personal terms are next, and personal terms are where more deals die than anybody prints.
HNK Gorica paid $120.0K and Zadar took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
Zadar asked and Slaven Belupo said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Niko Kovacevic 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.
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 Zadar 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.
A new face in his position, and Tomislav Pasalic suddenly has to win back what he thought he owned. Zadar have promised nothing — clubs rarely do at this stage.
The words a physio says slowly. 14 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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 113 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Position 2, 33 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.
“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 The request is on a desk at Zadar, and it is not being withdrawn.
The offer from Cibalia for Dino Cop was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Boardroom1 Feb 2027
Deadline passes with 0 signed and 0 gone
That is the business done at Zadar 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.
The deal with HNK Rijeka is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it 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 Zadar this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
3 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
Zvonimir Benko 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.
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.
8 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
The fixture the rest of the division is looking forward to more than either of the sides in it. Both know a win changes the season and a defeat does not end it, which is what makes it hard to play.
Bojan Kasalo 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.
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.
Nobody at Zadar 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Ante Benko was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Fran Topić 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Tomislav Pasalic. 1‑0 against Segesta, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Tomislav Ivanovic 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.
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Andrej Modric on a 1‑0 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
Successful dribbles: 29. 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.
4 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 had been thinking. Tomislav Ivanovic 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.
“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 Martin Sutalo.
The manager has re-ordered his thinking and Andrej Cop has come out of it lower. He will be told it is temporary, and the players who have heard that before will avoid his eye.
0‑3 to Dugopolje, and it was every bit as bad as the number suggests. There are defeats you argue about and defeats you apologise for; this was the second kind.
Bojan Kasalo 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.
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 manager kept them in and said what needed saying. A response is expected on Saturday, and if it does not come the questions move upstairs.
The dugout28 Sep 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 0‑3 Andrej Modric left the room before anybody could ask which.
In brief
The dugoutAndrej Cop dropped after a run of poor form
“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
Deadline passes with 1 signed and 3 gone
That is the business done at Zadar 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.
Zadar had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at PSV, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
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.
The deal that would have taken Zvonimir Majer to Imotski has collapsed at the last stage, and he reports back to Zadar with a summer to forget and a season still to play. Nobody is saying which side walked away.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 15-year-old it feels ownership of. Duje Cop 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Tomislav Pasalic. 1‑0 against Imotski, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.