Marked for Abdullah Sinik
From our football correspondent
Crisis
The terraces6 Dec 2027
Supporters organise against the Varteks board
A bad atmosphere can be waited out. A group of people meeting afterwards to decide what to do about it cannot, and everybody in the building knows which stage this is.
The dugout6 Dec 2027
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Varteks may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Squad6 Dec 2027
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.
Squad6 Dec 2027
Words exchanged at Varteks
Stipe Vladušić 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.
Squad6 Dec 2027
Stjepan Šalić 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.
Match4 Dec 2027
Beaten 0‑2, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
The dugout6 Dec 2027
“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.
Market6 Dec 2027
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Varteks, another week without a signature from Mihael Mačković.
The dugout6 Dec 2027
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 0‑2 defeat, delivered by Marko Lovren to a room that had heard them before.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
The terraces11 Oct 2027
Anger at Varteks spills outside the ground
It has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
Squad11 Oct 2027
Words exchanged at Varteks
Stipe Vladušić 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.
Squad11 Oct 2027
Words at Varteks training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Cristian Ciobanu 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.
Squad11 Oct 2027
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Boyan Dishkov and Varteks agree another 3 years.
The dugout11 Oct 2027
The manager makes an example of O'Shea Ellis
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
The dugout11 Oct 2027
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Varteks told O'Shea Ellis something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
Looking ahead11 Oct 2027
Hrvatski Dragovoljac next, and one man in the Varteks dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
Market11 Oct 2027
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Mihael Mačković’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.
Market11 Oct 2027
“There is a gap, and pretending there is not helps nobody.” Neither side has moved, and the calendar is working for exactly one of them.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match2 Oct 2027
5 matches without a win for Varteks
The run now stands at 5, and the questions being asked around Varteks are no longer polite ones.
Squad4 Oct 2027
Stipe Vladušić 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.
Squad4 Oct 2027
Stjepan Šalić 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.
Match2 Oct 2027
0‑1 to Djakovo Croatia, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
The dugout4 Oct 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Léo Schilliger, and the manager let it.
The dugout4 Oct 2027
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 Marko Lovren to a room that had heard them before.
Squad4 Oct 2027
Abdullah Sinik slips down the pecking order
The demotion a club never announces and a dressing room always notices. Abdullah Sinik is further from the side than he was, and the reason will not be given until he asks.
The dugout4 Oct 2027
Somebody else is better right now than Mihael Besek
The team sheet says it in public every week until it changes. The only version of being dropped a footballer cannot argue with, and the one he takes hardest.
The dugout4 Oct 2027
Vid Peša does not fit this one
Ninety specific minutes wanted a different sort of player, and the manager picked one. He is not out of form and he is not in the side, and both are true.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market6 Sep 2027
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Varteks can pretend not to have heard.
Boardroom6 Sep 2027
Deadline passes with 26 signed and 4 gone
That is the business done at Varteks 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.
Transfer targets6 Sep 2027
The deal with Istra 1961 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.
Squad6 Sep 2027
At 21 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.
Squad6 Sep 2027
“The easiest signature of my career.” Abdullah Sinik and Varteks agree another 3 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad6 Sep 2027
Mihael Mačković 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 targets6 Sep 2027
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Slaven Belupo have kept their man, and Varteks go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Squad6 Sep 2027
A row about effort at Varteks
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Stjepan Šalić was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout6 Sep 2027
The manager makes an example of Haris Hasanović
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match17 May 2027
Varteks are in real trouble now
Position 16, 19 points, and a fixture list with fewer games left in it than excuses. The arithmetic is not cruel yet, but it has stopped being kind.
Squad17 May 2027
Florent Shehu 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.
Squad17 May 2027
Words at Varteks training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Mihael Mačković 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 dugout17 May 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Mateo Lekaj, and the manager let it.
Squad17 May 2027
6 new faces, and Varteks are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
Squad17 May 2027
“I want to play”: Mateo Lekaj speaks
“I respect the manager and I am not going to sit here and pretend I am happy.” It is the most common sentence in football and it has never once been the end of a story.
The dugout17 May 2027
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Haris Hasanović trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Market17 May 2027
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Varteks know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Market17 May 2027
The list is a quiet document with a loud meaning. Abdullah Al-Zoari may talk to anybody who asks, and everybody at the club understands what that means.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Boardroom3 May 2027
The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Marko Lovren has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
The dugout3 May 2027
This is not rotation. Mihael Mačković has not been in the manager's plans for some time, and nobody at Varteks is pretending otherwise.
Boardroom3 May 2027
The Varteks board want somebody sold
The instruction has come from upstairs rather than from the dugout, which is the version of this conversation no manager enjoys. Somebody in that squad is now available whether the man who picks the team thinks so or not.
Squad3 May 2027
A falling-out at Varteks
Florent Shehu and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad3 May 2027
Stjepan Šalić 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 dugout3 May 2027
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Market3 May 2027
He is 15, and nobody at Varteks signed him for this season. Deals like this are judged in four years, by people who may not still be in the building.
Squad3 May 2027
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Ethan Moore and Varteks agree another 3 years.
The dugout3 May 2027
Florent Shehu without the man who signed him
Every squad is half players the manager chose and half players he inherited. Florent Shehu was chosen, the man who chose him has gone, and he starts again from nothing under the next one.