Marked for Ivan Šaranić
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match10 Oct 2026
10 matches without a win for Slaven Belupo
The run now stands at 10, and the questions being asked around Slaven Belupo are no longer polite ones.
Match12 Oct 2026
Every point is an argument now for Slaven Belupo
Position 10 and 7 points, and the table gets read bottom-up in this part of town. The calendar has stopped being a schedule and started being a countdown.
Market12 Oct 2026
“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.
Squad12 Oct 2026
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Tin Plavotić in a row with a teammate
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.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Niko Mandić is a better footballer than he was
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 17 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.
Player ratings12 Oct 2026
Successful dribbles: 21. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad12 Oct 2026
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Filip Krušelj commits to Slaven Belupo for another 5 years.
Player ratings12 Oct 2026
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.44, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Market14 Sep 2026
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Match14 Sep 2026
5 points, and a fixture list that is running out. The mathematics are not yet cruel, but they are no longer kind.
Match12 Sep 2026
6 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.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Tin Plavotić in a row with a teammate
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.
Squad14 Sep 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Osman Hadžikić, and the manager let it.
Match12 Sep 2026
0‑1 to Istra 1961, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Words at Slaven Belupo training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Igor Lepinjica 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 ratings14 Sep 2026
7 shots, and a count that reads like a good afternoon until you check the other column. Strikers survive weeks like this on the understanding that the chances keep arriving; the day they stop is the day it becomes a problem.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Filip Jović dropped after a run of poor form
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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match5 Sep 2026
5 matches without a win for Slaven Belupo
The run now stands at 5, and the questions being asked around Slaven Belupo are no longer polite ones.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Tin Plavotić 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.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Words at Slaven Belupo training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Pablo Barboza 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.
Squad7 Sep 2026
The manager makes an example of Toni Kolega
“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.
Squad7 Sep 2026
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Ilija Nestorovski is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
Match5 Sep 2026
It needed Marko Dabro to find the net to bring anything home at all: 1‑1 against Hajduk Split, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
Player ratings7 Sep 2026
5 attempts, none of them in. He got into the right places all afternoon, which is the hard part, and did the easy part badly — and that is the version of a bad day a manager can live with.
Player ratings7 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 12. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Player ratings7 Sep 2026
The chances came and went for Josip Mitrović
4 shots, and a count that reads like a good afternoon until you check the other column. Strikers survive weeks like this on the understanding that the chances keep arriving; the day they stop is the day it becomes a problem.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
The terraces3 Aug 2026
The ground has had enough
“We travel everywhere and we get this.” 8 of the 22 senior players heard it walking off, and the ones who did not hear it were not playing.
Squad3 Aug 2026
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Josip Radošević commits to Istra 1961 for another 2 years.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Smail Prevljak 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.
Market3 Aug 2026
The name of Ivan Šaranić has come up in conversations Istra 1961 were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Josip Radošević 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.
Market3 Aug 2026
Josip Radošević is free to find somewhere else
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Istra 1961 has been clear about where Josip Radošević stands, which is more than many ever get.
Squad3 Aug 2026
The manager makes an example of Silvio Goričan
“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.
Player ratings3 Aug 2026
7 attempts, none of them in. He got into the right places all afternoon, which is the hard part, and did the easy part badly — and that is the version of a bad day a manager can live with.