Robert Orsic damages knee ligaments — 100 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 100 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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Zadar will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Position 1, 35 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.
73 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.
“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.
Ivica Kovacevic 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.
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.
In brief
MarketMarin Petkov returns from a loan that gave him nothing
The words a physio says slowly. 111 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.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Zadar they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 36 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Zadar they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
90 minutes played. Zvonimir Kovacevic found the finish in time that only existed because of earlier delays, and Sesvete went from a point to nothing inside one movement.
He is 18, he is averaging 7.03, and older professionals have started passing to him in the difficult minutes. That last part is the real scouting report.
Ivan Cvijanović 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 18 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Zvonimir Kovacevic. 1‑0 against Sesvete, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 31 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
The hardest thing about being 18 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Stipe Corluka did not need any: 7.69, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
At 37 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.18 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
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.
Three points for Zadar, 2‑0 the final word against Sibenik in a contest settled by the finer margins.
Player ratings19 Oct 2026
Ivan Vrsaljko was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.04. 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 offer from HNK Vukovar 1991 for Ivica Kovacevic 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.
Ivica Kovacevic 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 18 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.
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.
The shape wanted a different profile against this opponent, which is a real football answer and no comfort at all to the man it is about. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
The hardest thing about being 18 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Stipe Corluka did not need any: 7.82, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
The phone has started ringing about Kristijan Rebic again, and this time the name on the line is HNK Gorica. Zadar are listening politely and promising nothing.
“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.
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.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Petar Budimir 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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Daniel 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.