Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Slaven Belupo they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad22 May 2028
Umeh Emmanuel 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 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 Mihail Caimacov is on it.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Slaven Belupo. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
4 clean sheets from 12 appearances at Dubrava. That is the whole of a goalkeeper’s job done properly, and it is being done a long way from the club that owns him.
13 graduates from an academy now rated 11 out of 20. A club this size does not survive any other way, and every name on that list is known in the town.
The shrug has gone, the language is coming, and he now argues in training like somebody who expects to be here next year. Half a signing's value is this and none of it appears on a fee.
What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at Slaven Belupo can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
Nothing has been announced and everybody understands what it means. A board that summons the whole football department on a Tuesday morning is a board that has stopped believing the problem will fix itself.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Slaven Belupo they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Ljuban Crepulja and Slaven Belupo agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad8 May 2028
Umeh Emmanuel 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.
Ivan Čović 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 pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Mihail Caimacov, and the manager let it.
The dugout8 May 2028
The manager has not finished forgetting Leonard Žuta'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.
In brief
The dugoutFasson loses the manager who believed in him
The dugoutDavid Amegnaglo has become a man the manager trusts
The mood at Slaven Belupo has turned into something else
Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now is.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Slaven Belupo this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad20 Mar 2028
Umeh Emmanuel 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 at Slaven Belupo will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
The dugout20 Mar 2028
The manager has not finished forgetting Mateo Barać'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.
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
Nobody upstairs has said anything, which is the loudest thing they could do. Results buy silence in this game; the account at Slaven Belupo is running low.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Slaven Belupo they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad28 Feb 2028
Umeh Emmanuel 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 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 Mihail Caimacov is on it.
4 shut-outs in 12 games. A goalkeeper’s loan is judged on the afternoons when nothing happened at all, and Matija Jesenović has been having a lot of them.
13 graduates, from a department now rated 11 out of 20. Nothing about the academy appears in a result, and nothing about the club’s future exists without it.
The mood at Slaven Belupo has turned into something else
Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now is.
Kevor Palumets 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.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Duje Bjelica has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Tin Srna has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Ivica Kovacevic is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Slaven Belupo are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Tin Srna has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
“I know what people will say. I know what I want, and it is here.” Hrvace had the fee agreed and the shirt ready; they did not have the player, and now they will not.
1 kept out in the shoot-out, and a stadium that will still be describing them in twenty years. A goalkeeper only needs one of these to be remembered forever.
The fee was agreed and the flight was looked at — and then the phone stopped ringing. Jarun Zagreb moved on, Ivan Čović reports back to Slaven Belupo, and everybody pretends Monday is just Monday.
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 7.81 for the rest of it.
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 2 arrived, 7 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
Nobody upstairs has said anything, which is the loudest thing they could do. Results buy silence in this game; the account at Slaven Belupo is running low.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Ivan Cvetko will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Slaven Belupo the goodbyes have quietly begun.
The name of Mihail Caimacov has come up in conversations Slaven Belupo were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Karlsruher SC have kept their man, and Slaven Belupo go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Everyone has stopped pretending: Segesta will make the call about Karlo Išasegi this week. Slaven Belupo have a number in mind, and the number is not shy.
Duje Matić is 20, and Slaven Belupo have signed him for the player he will be rather than the one he is. The first team can wait; the point of a deal like this is the years it buys.
The mood at Slaven Belupo has turned into something else
Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now is.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Opatija waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Slaven Belupo is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Slaven Belupo can pretend not to have heard.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. HNK Rijeka have kept their man, and Slaven Belupo go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Squad24 Jan 2028
Words at Slaven Belupo training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Umeh Emmanuel 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.
Slaven Belupo have made the call to Varteks. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
A loan enquiry to Wolfsberger AC: cover, or a look at somebody the club cannot afford to buy yet. Either way the answer will come back inside the week.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager makes an example of Karlo Išasegi
“It was not right for me. I am not going to explain why to anybody except the people I owe an explanation to.” A deal agreed between two clubs, and a player who declined to be part of it.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Jadran Luka Ploce waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Slaven Belupo is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
“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 Slaven Belupo, and it is not being withdrawn.
Igor Lepinjica 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.
Nothing happens for months and then he simply arrives, at no cost, having signed a pre-contract while still turning out for somebody else. It is the least dramatic way to sign a footballer and frequently the shrewdest.
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.
Squad17 Jan 2028
Words at Slaven Belupo training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Umeh Emmanuel 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.
15 points, and the season has a number on it. Whatever it felt like from the inside, this is what it will look like in a book.
Player ratings13 Dec 2027
Dušan Jovanović, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 7.85
A mark of 7.85 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
He is 22 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Slaven Belupo is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Slaven Belupo this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“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.
Squad25 Oct 2027
Umeh Emmanuel 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.
Cibalia next, and both sides can do the sum. Win and the table looks different; lose and it looks the way everybody has been fearing.
The dugout25 Oct 2027
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 0‑2 defeat, delivered by Tin Srna to a room that had heard them before.
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Mihail Caimacov will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Slaven Belupo the goodbyes have quietly begun.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Ljuban Crepulja and Slaven Belupo agree another 2 years.
5 without a win is the sort of run that changes how a town talks about its club, and NK Osijek were the afternoon it stopped. Nothing is fixed by one result and everything feels different by one.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Umeh Emmanuel was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Slaven Belupo has been clear about where Ivan Čović stands, which is more than many ever get.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Hrvace waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Slaven Belupo is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
The offer from Lokomotiva Zagreb for Marko Dabro 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.
The fee was agreed and the flight was looked at — and then the phone stopped ringing. Lokomotiva Zagreb moved on, Karlo Sentić reports back to Slaven Belupo, and everybody pretends Monday is just Monday.
At 21 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Umeh Emmanuel was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Conceding is one thing; the response is what tells you about a dressing room. Umeh Emmanuel had Slaven Belupo level again within 1 minutes, and HNK Gorica never got to play with a lead at all.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Slaven Belupo this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Slaven Belupo have lost him in all but the paperwork.
$10.3M was the most the club would pay and Gil Vicente were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
Everything was agreed until it was not, and Ivan Čović reports back to Slaven Belupo with a summer to forget. Neither club is saying who walked away from the table.
Boardroom6 Sep 2027
Deadline passes with 19 signed and 16 gone
That is the business done at Slaven Belupo until the window opens again. Whether it was enough will be answered on Saturdays rather than in a column, and the first Saturday is close.
The name of Mihail Caimacov has come up in conversations Slaven Belupo were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $91.0K — a club that wants Luka Hodak enough to be asked twice.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Slaven Belupo this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
$86.0K on the table at Hajduk Split. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Lokomotiva Zagreb waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Slaven Belupo is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Slaven Belupo can pretend not to have heard.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Slaven Belupo is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Add another name to the list: Lokomotiva Zagreb have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Ivan Čović. The answer from Slaven Belupo has not changed — yet.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $147.9K — a club that wants Luka Hodak enough to be asked twice.
$150.0K was the most the club would pay and Hajduk Split were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
Squad30 Aug 2027
Words at Slaven Belupo training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Dušan Jovanović 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Shakhtar have kept their man, and Slaven Belupo go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Slaven Belupo have lost him in all but the paperwork.
The offer from Kustosija for Ivan Čović 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.
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Fasson scored, was marked 7.63, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
Successful dribbles: 21. 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.
Three points for Slaven Belupo, 3‑1 the final word against Cibalia in a contest settled by the finer margins.
Squad16 Aug 2027
Words at Slaven Belupo training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Dušan Jovanović 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Zenit have kept their man, and Slaven Belupo go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Add another name to the list: Kustosija have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Ivan Čović. The answer from Slaven Belupo has not changed — yet.
Raúl Torrente 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.
A midfielder is measured on whether the team functions when he is on the pitch, which is nearly impossible to see and completely obvious in retrospect. 15 actions, 6.92, and a manager who will not be substituting him again in a hurry.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Dušan Jovanović was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Ljuban Crepulja and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad19 Jul 2027
Words at Slaven Belupo training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Marko Dabro 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.
Slaven Belupo asked and Wolfsberger AC said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
A loan enquiry to Lokomotiv Moscow: cover, or a look at somebody the club cannot afford to buy yet. Either way the answer will come back inside the week.
The system has changed and his position has not. A footballer can improve his form; he cannot improve the manager’s formation, and that is the whole of the problem.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Slaven Belupo is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad19 Apr 2027
Words at Slaven Belupo training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Matej Maglica 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 was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Slaven Belupo this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Nobody at Slaven Belupo will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
5 goals in 26 games at Varteks — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Slaven Belupo updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
NK Osijek go through and Slaven Belupo go home, 0‑2 the scoreline that did it. The dressing room will call the league the priority now, because that is what dressing rooms say.
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.
Matej Maglica 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.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Tin Srna after 0‑2, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
The manager has re-ordered his thinking and Ernis Qestaj has come out of it lower. He will be told it is temporary, and the players who have heard that before will avoid his eye.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Slaven Belupo, and both men came out saying it was fine.
In brief
The dugoutIvan Čović dropped after a run of poor form
Matej Maglica 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.
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 Mihail Caimacov is on it.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Slaven Belupo know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Tomislav Božić has written the date down.
A year in and the city has not opened up, the language has not come, and lunch is eaten alone more often than anybody at Slaven Belupo would admit. It shows on Saturdays.
Position 5 on 22 points, and the places that carry a European ticket are close enough to count. Seasons like this are decided by two results in April, and the club knows which two.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Zenit keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Igor Lepinjica and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad15 Feb 2027
Matej Maglica 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Lokomotiv Moscow have kept their man, and Slaven Belupo go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
“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 Slaven Belupo will have to answer with minutes or with a transfer.
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 Mihail Caimacov is on it.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Dominik Kovačić trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
The deal with Zenit 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.
Matej Maglica 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Dominik Kovačić was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Slaven Belupo people have started saying his name in the past tense.
Slaven Belupo 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.
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 Arnór Gauti Jónsson is on it.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Slaven Belupo know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Position 5 on 22 points, and the places that carry a European ticket are close enough to count. Seasons like this are decided by two results in April, and the club knows which two.
Nobody at Slaven Belupo will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined 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 Slaven Belupo, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Slaven Belupo know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
22 points from position 5. The title is somebody else’s business and the drop is somebody else’s problem; what is left is the argument about passports.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.90 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
“I watch every Slaven Belupo game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Solin runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
At 19 he was better than everybody his age in the division for four weeks running, which is harder than one good afternoon. Slaven Belupo will try not to make too much of it.
Warm-up bib, ninety minutes of watching, and a handshake at the end that fooled nobody. Big matches tell you who a manager trusts; this one told Ivan Čović.
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Enis Berisha is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
The dugout7 Dec 2026
The view from the dugout
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” Tin Srna, on a 1‑0 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
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.
10 goals in 15 games at Karlovac 1919 — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Slaven Belupo updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
The dugout30 Nov 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 0‑2 Tin Srna left the room before anybody could ask which.
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Slaven Belupo this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Minute 91, against HNK Rijeka, and a goal that felt like a win to everybody who had stayed. It was a draw. Nobody leaving the ground will describe it as one.
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
“There are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 1‑1, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.
Igor Lepinjica 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.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Arnór Gauti Jónsson and Slaven Belupo agree another 3 years.
Goalkeepers do not get to make mistakes; they get to make goals. He made one, he knew it instantly, and there was nobody behind him to make it anything else.
“I watch every Slaven Belupo game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Solin runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑2, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
The dugout9 Nov 2026
Somebody else is better right now than Karlo Sentić
The team sheet says it in public every week until it changes. The only version of being dropped a footballer cannot argue with, and the one he takes hardest.
The dugout9 Nov 2026
Ivan Čović is still being punished for one mistake
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.
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Ljuban Crepulja scored, was marked 7.53, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
Filip Uremovic 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.
Successful dribbles: 17. 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.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Slaven Belupo told Filip Uremovic something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
“I watch every Slaven Belupo game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Varteks runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Slaven Belupo have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
3 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
HNK Gorica made Slaven Belupo work for it, but the scoreboard read 1‑0 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Player ratings26 Oct 2026
Josip Mitrović was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.14. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
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.
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Tin Srna on a 1‑0 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
In brief
Loan watchThe goals keep arriving from Marko Žuljević’s exile
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Ljuban Crepulja provided it, and the 8.25 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
The hardest thing about being 18 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Matej Tomić did not need any: 7.76, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 21 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.
Everybody at Slaven Belupo saw it before anybody said it, which is how this always goes. At 38 the decline is real and measurable — 3 points — and the only question left is how the club handles somebody it owes a great deal to.
He is 18 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
“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 Slaven Belupo, and it is not being withdrawn.
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 7.82 for the rest of it.
Filip Uremovic 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.
Hajduk Split made Slaven Belupo work for it, but the scoreboard read 1‑0 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Squad14 Sep 2026
9 new faces, and Slaven Belupo are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Slaven Belupo, and 0 appearances in 5 say he has earned the hearing.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Orijent 1919 waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Slaven Belupo is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
0‑4 to Dinamo Zagreb, 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Slaven Belupo can pretend not to have heard.
$8.0M was the most the club would pay and DAC Dunajska Streda were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Dinamo Zagreb have kept their man, and Slaven Belupo go back to a list with one name crossed off 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 7.92 for the rest of it.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Dominik Pavlek is living that version at Slaven Belupo, and it tends to show in the first month.
Ilija Nestorovski 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 offer went to NK Osijek 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.
A midfielder is measured on whether the team functions when he is on the pitch, which is nearly impossible to see and completely obvious in retrospect. 12 actions, 7.20, and a manager who will not be substituting him again in a hurry.
2 in front and in complete control, and it finished with NK Osijek the happier side. There is no version of this afternoon that Slaven Belupo will enjoy reviewing.
7.49, 1 on the scoresheet, and the specific comedy of a back-four player celebrating like somebody who does this every week. He does not, and that is exactly why the ground reacted the way it did.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Slaven Belupo this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Itsuki Urata was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Add another name to the list: Croatia Zmijavci have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Matija Jesenović. The answer from Slaven Belupo has not changed — yet.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Slaven Belupo, another week without a signature from Ilija Nestorovski.
Still no offer on the table, and Dominik Kovačić’s deal keeps shrinking. In boardroom language, silence this long stops being an oversight and starts being an answer.