Marked for Tomislav Grbic
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market9 Jun 2042
The offer from Segesta for Gabrijel Šivalec 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.
Squad9 Jun 2042
“The easiest signature of my career.” Gabrijel Šivalec and Dinamo Zagreb agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad9 Jun 2042
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.
Market9 Jun 2042
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Dinamo Zagreb is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Market9 Jun 2042
Both sides expect a conversation in the coming days. Dinamo Zagreb will name a price, and everything after that is arithmetic.
Market9 Jun 2042
Add another name to the list: Sibenik have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Damir Sucic. The answer from Dinamo Zagreb has not changed — yet.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad30 Dec 2041
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 94 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Market30 Dec 2041
Tomislav Grbic has one foot out of the door
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Dinamo Zagreb they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad30 Dec 2041
Diego Conde 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.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad2 Dec 2041
A fracture rules Moris Valinčić out for 123 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Dinamo Zagreb will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Market2 Dec 2041
Olimpia come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Dinamo Zagreb did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Market2 Dec 2041
Only the photograph left for Tomislav Grbic
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Tomislav Grbic will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Dinamo Zagreb the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad2 Dec 2041
Sergi Domínguez 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.
Market2 Dec 2041
The phone has started ringing about Bojan Perisic again, and this time the name on the line is Fortaleza. Dinamo Zagreb are listening politely and promising nothing.
Squad2 Dec 2041
The manager makes an example of Bojan Majer
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match30 Oct 2041
A 2‑1 win over Segesta, a place in the next round, and the quiet arithmetic every supporter does on the walk home: how many more until a final?
Squad4 Nov 2041
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 8 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Player ratings4 Nov 2041
Successful dribbles: 31. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad4 Nov 2041
“The easiest signature of my career.” Gabrijel Šivalec and Dinamo Zagreb agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad4 Nov 2041
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.
Market4 Nov 2041
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Dinamo Zagreb is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad4 Nov 2041
Words at Dinamo Zagreb training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Matteo Pérez Vinlöf 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.
Player ratings4 Nov 2041
A performance of 8.03 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Match5 Oct 2041
Whatever happens, Dinamo Zagreb do not lose
15 games unbeaten now. Some were earned and some were survived, but a habit is forming — and habits are the hardest thing in football to play against.
Squad7 Oct 2041
349 appearances across 18 seasons in these colours. Careers like that are not built any more, and Dinamo Zagreb know what they have.
Player ratings7 Oct 2041
Two goals and a mark of 8.17 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Market7 Oct 2041
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Dinamo Zagreb is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad7 Oct 2041
Words at Dinamo Zagreb training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Matteo Pérez Vinlöf 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.
Match5 Oct 2041
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Gabrijel Šivalec. 2‑0 against HNK Rijeka, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Squad7 Oct 2041
27 days, the scan says, and scans are kinder than reality. The fixtures in that window have just become somebody else’s job.
Squad7 Oct 2041
“The easiest signature of my career.” Josip Bjelica and Dinamo Zagreb agree another 3 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Player ratings7 Oct 2041
Defensive actions: 15, and a clean sheet at the end of it. A centre-half's best afternoons look like nothing happening, which is precisely the point.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Match7 Sep 2041
The run at home goes on for Dinamo Zagreb
17 matches unbeaten here. Every visiting manager is asked about it in the week before, which is precisely why it keeps going.
Match7 Sep 2041
7 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
Market9 Sep 2041
The phone has started ringing about Gabrijel Šivalec again, and this time the name on the line is Cibalia. Dinamo Zagreb are listening politely and promising nothing.
Player ratings9 Sep 2041
Sami Wattel, 35, rolls back the years — 7.96
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.96 at 35, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Market9 Sep 2041
Zadar come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Dinamo Zagreb did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Squad9 Sep 2041
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Gabriel Vidović commits to Dinamo Zagreb for another 2 years.
Market9 Sep 2041
Only the photograph left for Tomislav Grbic
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Tomislav Grbic will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Dinamo Zagreb the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad9 Sep 2041
Diego Conde 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.
Squad9 Sep 2041
Sergi Domínguez 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.