The words a physio says slowly. 15 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.
Tonći Mujan 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.
$10.0K on the table at Slaven Belupo. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Squad28 Jun 2027
Words at Grobnican training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ivan Ikić 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.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Grobnican, and both men came out saying it was fine.
The words a physio says slowly. 22 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.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at HNK Rijeka is saying, and nobody at Grobnican is enjoying the guessing.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Grobnican have done the hard part with NK Osijek, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
Grobnican asked and HNK Rijeka said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Matija Kanceljak trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
The words a physio says slowly. 30 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.
Grobnican and HNK Rijeka have settled on $1.1M. The rest belongs to the player and his agent, and a supporter who has watched one of these before knows not to buy the shirt yet.
Grobnican have gone to Dubrava 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Grobnican this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Marius Poncel is living that version at Grobnican, and it tends to show in the first month.
Grobnican asked and Dugopolje said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Squad14 Jun 2027
Ivan Ikić 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 academy exists for exactly this morning. Nikola Vlasic has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.