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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason HNK Gorica will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and NK Varazdin waiting with a shirt. Nobody at HNK Gorica is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what HNK Gorica can pretend not to have heard.
Squad5 Jun 2028
Jurica Pršir 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. Nizhniy Novgorod have kept their man, and HNK Gorica go back to a list with one name crossed off 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 HNK Gorica this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason HNK Gorica will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Not a month, not a run of form — a whole season of being the best 21-year-old anybody in this division could put on a pitch. This is the honour that gets mentioned for the rest of his career.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what HNK Gorica can pretend not to have heard.
The kind of year that ends with a name being read out in a hall. HNK Gorica had the benefit of it every week and now have the problem of everybody else knowing.
Squad29 May 2028
Words at HNK Gorica training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jurica Pršir 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 not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. HNK Gorica told Mateo Leš something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
Nobody at HNK Gorica 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.
The words a physio says slowly. 135 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.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. HNK Gorica will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Fran Stunja will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around HNK Gorica the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Dženis Burnić was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Astemir Khashkulov 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 at HNK Gorica 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.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. HNK Gorica told Mario Mladenovski something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
144 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. HNK Gorica lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 39 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Dženis Burnić will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around HNK Gorica the goodbyes have quietly begun.
“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 HNK Gorica, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad15 May 2028
Jurica Pršir 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.
Dino Curać 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.
Nobody at HNK Gorica 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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason HNK Gorica will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Ante Kavelj will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around HNK Gorica the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad8 May 2028
Words at HNK Gorica training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jurica Pršir 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.
Something was said to Bartol Kardum and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
A year in and the city has not opened up, the language has not come, and lunch is eaten alone more often than anybody at HNK Gorica would admit. It shows on Saturdays.
Nobody at HNK Gorica 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.