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 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.
“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 The request is on a desk at Zadar, and it is not being withdrawn.
Duje Colak 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. Josip Krznarić 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.
The words a physio says slowly. 26 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Leandro Gelpi 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.
Domagoj Sutalo 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.
12 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 offer from Zadar for Niko Galešić 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.
Mislav Oršić 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.
Squad18 Jan 2027
Scott McKenna 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.
55 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.
“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.
There are footballers who have a good season and footballers a season is remembered for, and the second kind get their names read out in a hall in the summer. Zadar will be quietly delighted and privately nervous.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Harrison Wood has just signed for Zadar, and for once the answer mattered.
“I watch every Zadar game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Dinamo Zagreb runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
The words a physio says slowly. 84 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.
Domagoj Sutalo 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 Zadar, and 2 appearances in 17 say he has earned the hearing.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Dinamo Zagreb this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad30 Nov 2026
Words at Dinamo Zagreb training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Scott McKenna 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 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.
Mate Budimir damages knee ligaments — 114 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 114 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.
Duje Colak 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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Duje Colak 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.
Duje Colak 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 Zadar, and 1 appearances in 9 say he has earned the hearing.
Robert Kasalo wins it after the whistle should have gone
92 minutes played. Robert Kasalo found the finish in time that only existed because of earlier delays, and Cibalia went from a point to nothing inside one movement.
“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 deal that would have taken Nikola Babic to Sibenik 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.
Domagoj Sutalo 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 watch every Zadar game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Dinamo Zagreb runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
$120.0K is a serious amount of money and it does not play centre-forward. Everybody in the dressing room knows who used to be looked at when it went wrong.
“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 terraces10 Aug 2026
Supporters turn on the $120.0K sale of Daniel Lovren
He is going to Hrvatski Dragovoljac, the club has $120.0K it did not have on Friday, and the phone-ins have already decided how they feel about that. Selling well and selling somebody they loved are not the same skill.
Duje Colak 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 name of Domagoj Simunovic has come up in conversations Zadar were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
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.