Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now is.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Mykhailo Bezus will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Zadar the goodbyes have quietly begun.
5 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Mykhailo Bezus is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Niko Livaja 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Marin Kovac was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Successful dribbles: 16. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager makes an example of Fran Simunovic
Successful dribbles: 29. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
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.
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.
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.
Every club in football pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time somebody has tried it.
“It is not the end of the world and it is not good enough. Both of those are true.” The manager, after a 1‑1 draw, said the honest thing and then went to say it again inside.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Zadar, and both men came out saying it was fine.
In brief
The dugoutMarin Cop has become a man the manager trusts
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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Mykhailo Bezus will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Zadar the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Mateo Bogdan 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Kristijan Colak was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Zadar can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Jaxon Brown trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say a squad player is on it.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager makes Matheus Fogo a promise
$1.2M settles it between the clubs for Roko Jurišić
NK Osijek have accepted the money. What Zadar do not yet have is the man, and between here and the photograph is a conversation about wages that both sides are dreading.
“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.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Lokomotiva Zagreb is saying, and nobody at Zadar is enjoying the guessing.
4 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
4 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Zadar can tell you which week it ends in.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Kristijan Colak was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The clubs have shaken hands with Istra 1961; the player has not yet. Personal terms are next, and personal terms are where more deals die than anybody prints.
“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.
Zadar have gone to Lokomotiva Zagreb with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
Zadar offered $10.0K; Rudes said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
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.