Marked for Marko Markovic
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad23 Jun 2036
85 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Jedinstvo Ub lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Market23 Jun 2036
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Jedinstvo Ub is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad23 Jun 2036
Aleksa Adamović 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.
Transfer targets23 Jun 2036
$200.00 on the table at Voždovac. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Transfer targets23 Jun 2036
The offer went to Mladost Lucani this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
Transfer targets23 Jun 2036
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.
Squad23 Jun 2036
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Abdulmajid Usman was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Transfer targets23 Jun 2036
A loan move for Djordje Babic is in the works
Jedinstvo Ub have made the call to Novi Pazar. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
Squad23 Jun 2036
“I did not sign to watch. Nobody does.” The oldest complaint in the game, and Jedinstvo Ub will have to answer it with minutes or with a move.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad16 Jun 2036
92 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Jedinstvo Ub lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Squad16 Jun 2036
A muscle injury and 14 days out for Peter Okechukwu
The most common injury in the game and the most rushed back from. Jedinstvo Ub will quote 14 days and will be careful with it, because the second one is always worse than the first.
Transfer targets16 Jun 2036
The offer went to Partizan this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
Squad16 Jun 2036
Alfie Whiteman 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.
Transfer targets16 Jun 2036
Jedinstvo Ub asked and Voždovac said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Boardroom16 Jun 2036
Wages swallow 107% of the Jedinstvo Ub income
Every club 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 it has been tried.
The dugout16 Jun 2036
“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 dugout16 Jun 2036
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 Miroslav Stojkovic is on it.
Squad16 Jun 2036
Milan Grujic: “I am not a substitute”
“I have done everything asked of me in training and it has not changed a thing on a Saturday.” The most familiar complaint in football, and one Jedinstvo Ub will have to answer with minutes or with a transfer.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
The dugout10 Mar 2036
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Jedinstvo Ub may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Squad10 Mar 2036
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and Jedinstvo Ub know it.
Squad10 Mar 2036
Alfie Whiteman 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.
Squad10 Mar 2036
Anders Hoeg 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 dugout10 Mar 2036
“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 dugout10 Mar 2036
Something was said to Aleksa Adamović and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match24 Feb 2035
No end in sight to Jedinstvo Ub's wait for a win
12 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Jedinstvo Ub has to find a result from somewhere.
Squad26 Feb 2035
Alfie Whiteman breaks a bone — 113 days out
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 113 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Match24 Feb 2035
Chastening afternoon for Jedinstvo Ub
A 0‑3 beating by FAP Priboj was the sort of result that empties a stadium long before the final whistle.
Match24 Feb 2035
4 matches without a goal for Jedinstvo Ub
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 4 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
Squad26 Feb 2035
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Peter Okechukwu was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Squad26 Feb 2035
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Jedinstvo Ub this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The dugout26 Feb 2035
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Eric Voufack, and the manager let it.
Boardroom26 Feb 2035
The music was off and the showers ran late. What was said in that dressing room stays there, but Saturday will publish the minutes.
The dugout26 Feb 2035
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑3, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad19 Feb 2035
A fracture rules Alfie Whiteman out for 120 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Jedinstvo Ub will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Match17 Feb 2035
11 matches without a win for Jedinstvo Ub
The run now stands at 11, and the questions being asked around Jedinstvo Ub are no longer polite ones.
Market19 Feb 2035
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Jedinstvo Ub is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Boardroom19 Feb 2035
The rules permit it and it stings anyway. Saani Isshak Mohammed has agreed terms with Voždovac for the summer, and until then he pulls on this shirt as a player who has already chosen his next one.
Squad19 Feb 2035
Aleksa Adamović 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.
Squad19 Feb 2035
A move Marko Markovic would have made for nothing
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Marko Markovic is living that version at Jedinstvo Ub, and it tends to show in the first month.
Boardroom19 Feb 2035
The paperwork is done long before the player is. Luka Kljajić has agreed terms to come here when his current deal runs out, which means Jedinstvo Ub have spent a summer's transfer budget on a phone call.
Match17 Feb 2035
3 matches without a goal for Jedinstvo Ub
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 3 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
Match17 Feb 2035
0‑2 to IMT, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.