22 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Lokomotiva Zagreb lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
32 points, and the rest of the division looking up. Every side that finishes first spends the season pretending it is not thinking about it, and this one has started pretending.
Marko Vešović 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.
“I did not go to BSK Bijelo Brdo to sit and watch. I want to come back to Lokomotiva Zagreb and fight for my place.” 0 appearances in 13 matches say the rest.
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 Ibrahim Sabra is on it.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Lokomotiva Zagreb know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Lokomotiva Zagreb. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
Marko Vešović 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.
Squad22 Feb 2027
Marko Pajač 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.
“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 Lokomotiva Zagreb, and 0 appearances in 5 say he has earned the hearing.
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 Aleksandar Trajkovski is on 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 Lokomotiva Zagreb, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Lokomotiva Zagreb know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
3 goals in 27 games at Lucko — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Lokomotiva Zagreb updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
At 34 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.33 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 20-year-old it feels ownership of. Ibrahim Sabra has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Jan Vertonghen and Lokomotiva Zagreb agree another 2 years.
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 Mirko Sušak.
The dugout23 Nov 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.” Dejan Knezevic, on a 2‑0 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
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.
Marko Vešović 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 had been thinking. Ibrahim Sabra 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.
10 combined actions and 6.89. The job he did is the one that shows up as other people looking good, and the only reliable way to notice it is to watch what happens on the afternoons he is missing.
“I did not go to Dugo Selo to sit and watch. I want to come back to Lokomotiva Zagreb and fight for my place.” 0 appearances in 13 matches say the rest.
The dugout9 Nov 2026
The view from the dugout
“We did not lose. Some weeks that is all you get, and I would rather have the point than not.” Dejan Knezevic chose the glass-half-full version of 0‑0; the supporters left with the other one.
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 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.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.98 at 34, and nobody on the pitch was better.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Lokomotiva Zagreb this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Oliver Heiðarsson. 1‑0 against HNK Vukovar 1991, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
NK Varazdin next, and the two sides the division is watching meet each other. Whoever wins will be told nothing is decided in the same breath as being congratulated.
“I did not go to Uljanik Pula to sit and watch. I want to come back to Lokomotiva Zagreb and fight for my place.” 0 appearances in 6 matches say the rest.