2‑2 against Charleroi, and a performance that will be described to people who were not there for the rest of the season. Raúl Torrente was at the centre of the description.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Sandro Kulenović provided it, and the 8.54 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.34 at 34, and nobody on the pitch was better.
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Dinamo Zagreb hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
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.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 17 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.
Marked 9.15 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Sandro Kulenović. 2‑0 against Rudes, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
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.
Squad27 Sep 2027
Words at Dinamo Zagreb training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Sandro Kulenović 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.
Beaten 1‑2, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Player ratings27 Sep 2027
Dion Beljo was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.92. 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.
8 shots, and a count that reads like a good afternoon until you check the other column. Strikers survive weeks like this on the understanding that the chances keep arriving; the day they stop is the day it becomes a problem.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 9 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
There were 85 minutes on the clock and NK Osijek had all but banked the point. Football rarely reads the room, and Dinamo Zagreb did not stop to explain themselves.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Roko Ban will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Dinamo Zagreb the goodbyes have quietly begun.
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.
At 22 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 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.
In brief
Player ratingsNinety minutes of Sandro Kulenović at his very best