“I listened, I thought about it, and I am staying. That is the whole story.” The clubs had agreed a fee. Josip Mitrović had not agreed to go, which turned out to be the part that mattered.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Dinamo Zagreb have lost him in all but the paperwork.
Mislav Oršić 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.
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 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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Luka Ivanušec trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
3‑0 against HJK, and a performance that will change how the rest of the competition talks about this club. Reputations in continental football are built in single evenings and this was one.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.05 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
1 for Miha Zajc, marked 7.97, and a centre-half's name in the part of the report he normally only reaches by mistake. He will not be allowed to forget it in the dressing room for a month.
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Dinamo Zagreb hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
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.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Miha Zajc was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
He is 23 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.
8 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
1‑0 against Willem II, under lights, against people who do not speak the same language as the crowd. These are the evenings a club measures its decade in, and there are never as many of them as anybody expects.
There were 89 minutes on the clock and Willem II had all but banked the point. Football rarely reads the room, and Dinamo Zagreb did not stop to explain themselves.
Mislav Oršić 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.
Squad30 Nov 2026
Scott McKenna 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.
Something was said to Gabriel Pereira and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 1‑0, Nikola Colak could afford to be generous.
4 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.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Nikola Colak after 0‑1, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
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 Dion Beljo is on it.
26 points from position 4. The title is somebody else’s business and the drop is somebody else’s problem; what is left is the argument about passports.
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
Successful dribbles: 23. 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 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.
Squad16 Nov 2026
Scott McKenna 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.
Hajduk Split next, which means a week that starts on Monday. Everything else on this page will be forgotten by Saturday; this fixture will not be forgotten for a year.
5 call-ups is a compliment to the squad and a headache for the man running it. He will get them back in a fortnight, tired, in various states of repair.
The dugout16 Nov 2026
The manager has not finished forgetting Scott McKenna'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.
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 Mislav Oršić is on it.
Gabriel Pereira 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 Scott McKenna was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Nikola Colak after the 0‑0 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
Something was said to Lovre Rogić and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
The crowd waited for a goal that never came. HNK Vukovar 1991 defended in numbers and left with what they came for, and the two sides could be playing still without troubling a scorer.
Dion Beljo 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.
With 6 players away on international duty the sessions are small and the manager can actually hear himself. It is the one break in the season, and it never quite feels like one.
Nobody at Dinamo Zagreb 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 is not the end of the world and it is not good enough. Both of those are true.” The manager, after a 0‑0 draw, said the honest thing and then went to say it again inside.
Successful dribbles: 13. 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.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against HNK Vukovar 1991 in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
0‑3 to HNK Rijeka, 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.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
$2.1M on the table at HNK Rijeka. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
Deadline passes with 3 signed and 8 gone
That is the business done at Dinamo Zagreb 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.
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Dinamo Zagreb hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Dinamo Zagreb asked and HNK Rijeka said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Al Ain keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Dion Beljo 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.
In brief
SquadWords at Dinamo Zagreb training over how hard people work
FC Copenhagen did not want to sell and the number is why they did. $10.6M for Gabriel Pereira, and the expectation that arrives with him is the kind no amount of settling-in period softens.
Arbër Hoxha has gone, the accounts have $5.1M in them, and the supporters have the feeling of having been sold something themselves. Good business and a good decision are not always the same thing.
Ferencvaros paid $5.1M and Dinamo Zagreb took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. HNK Rijeka have kept their man, and Dinamo Zagreb go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Antonio Đaković has just signed for Dinamo Zagreb, and for once the answer mattered.
Boards get told what they have done wrong for years and hear nothing on the days they get it right. This is one of those days: Gabriel Pereira from FC Copenhagen for $10.6M, and a ticket office having a very good morning.
A brace, and Dion Beljo takes the afternoon — 9.19
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Dion Beljo provided it, and the 9.19 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
$10.6M on the table at FC Copenhagen. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
At 33 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 7.94 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Istra 1961 have kept their man, and Dinamo Zagreb go back to a list with one name crossed off 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 Dinamo Zagreb this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Dinamo Zagreb offered $510.0K; Istra 1961 said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.