“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Hrvace can pretend not to have heard.
Steve De Ridder 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.
Squad15 Feb 2027
Lucas Araújo 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.
Nobody will confirm it and the team sheets confirm it every week. One error has bought him a spell as second choice that is already longer than the error deserved.
A year in and the language has not come, the city has not opened up, and he eats alone more often than anybody at Hrvace would like to admit. It is showing on Saturdays.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Hrvace know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Everything agreed with Botev Plovdiv, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
Hrvace asked and Karlovac 1919 said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Squad18 Jan 2027
Ivan Dominić 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.
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. Hrvace will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
“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 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.
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.
0‑3 to Karlovac 1919, and it was every bit as bad as the number suggests. There are defeats you argue about and defeats you apologise for; this was the second kind.
“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 Hrvace, and it is not being withdrawn.
Paul Bismarck Tabinas 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.
Squad2 Nov 2026
Words at Hrvace training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Niko Farkaš 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.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Petar Petkovic after 0‑3, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
A defender on the scoresheet, which happens rarely enough that everybody in the ground remembers who took the corner. 1 for him, and a mark of 7.44 for the rest of it.
Beaten 1‑3, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Niko Farkaš 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 dugout28 Sep 2026
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 1‑3 Petar Petkovic left the room before anybody could ask which.
“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.
The dugout28 Sep 2026
The manager has not finished forgetting Daniel Simunovic's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
Successful dribbles: 25. 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.
The deal with FCSB 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Ivan Dominić was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Beaten 0‑1, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
The dugout31 Aug 2026
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 Petar Petkovic to a room that had heard them before.
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. Hrvace will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.