6 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Partizan this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad1 Oct 2035
Words at Partizan training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Uroš Račić 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.
The injury that keeps coming back, keeps being rushed back from, and quietly costs more careers than the dramatic ones. 14 days is the estimate; the honest figure depends on whether anybody is patient.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 41 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
“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 The request is on a desk at Partizan, and it is not being withdrawn.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Partizan is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Kingsley Coman 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.
The bid was some way short and Partizan did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Squad20 Aug 2035
Uroš Račić 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.
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.
The offer from Napredak for Milos Lazovic was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Kingsley Coman 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.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Partizan heard it as anything else.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 20 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.
Squad3 Jul 2034
Words at Partizan training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Mateja Milovanović 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.
“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 Partizan, and it is not being withdrawn.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Partizan this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Partizan this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Partizan heard it as anything else.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Partizan is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 8 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Ivan Simic will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Partizan the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Nikola Simić 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.
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.
10 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.
5 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Partizan can tell you which week it ends in.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Partizan they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Nikola Simić 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.
A conversation is coming this week. Partizan will put a number on him, and from there it stops being football and becomes arithmetic.
Squad30 Jan 2034
Words at Partizan training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Uroš Račić 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.
The phone has started ringing about Beer Vijfhuizen again, and this time the name on the line is IMT. Partizan are listening politely and promising nothing.
The words a physio says slowly. 41 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.
6 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.
An individual honour is a strange thing in a team game, and the best of them are never argued with. He has had the sort of year that ends with his name being read out, and Partizan have had the benefit of 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 Partizan this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Partizan is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.