Marked for Clément Lhernault
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad10 Aug 2026
Uroš Đorđević arrives at the club he grew up with
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Uroš Đorđević has, at Ušće, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
Transfer targets10 Aug 2026
The deal with Zeleznicar Pancevo 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.
Player ratings10 Aug 2026
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.
Market10 Aug 2026
He left as a boy and has come back still knowing where the away end is. Most signings have to be explained to a town; this one needed a photograph and nothing else.
Market10 Aug 2026
He left as a boy and has come back still knowing where the away end is. Most signings have to be explained to a town; this one needed a photograph and nothing else.
Transfer targets10 Aug 2026
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Radnik Surdulica have kept their man, and Ušće go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Market10 Aug 2026
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Aleksandar Ivic has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
Market10 Aug 2026
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Nemanja Babic has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
Match8 Aug 2026
Beaten 0‑1, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market10 Aug 2026
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Zeleznicar Pancevo people have started saying his name in the past tense.
Market10 Aug 2026
The offer from Partizan for Janko Jevremović 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.
Squad10 Aug 2026
“The easiest signature of my career.” David Ankeye and Zeleznicar Pancevo agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Player ratings10 Aug 2026
Two of the goals had his name somewhere on them, which is the afternoon a manager wants from anybody asked to both create and finish. 7.95, and 2 involvements.
Transfer targets10 Aug 2026
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Novi Pazar have kept their man, and Zeleznicar Pancevo go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Market10 Aug 2026
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Darko Grujic 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.
Market10 Aug 2026
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Darko Savic is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Stefan Obradović 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.
Player ratings10 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 17. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad3 Aug 2026
A one-man rearguard from Kadir Gicić
There were 7 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Match1 Aug 2026
6 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Ušće and Zemun in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
Transfer targets3 Aug 2026
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.
Match1 Aug 2026
It needed Marko Jović to find the net to bring anything home at all: 3‑3 against Zemun, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Tempers go at Ušće
Aleksa Cvetković 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.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Tomislav Todorović 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.
Squad3 Aug 2026
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Uroš Ljubomirac and Ušće agree another 1 years.
Transfer targets3 Aug 2026
Zeleznicar Pancevo have been asked whether they would lend him. Loans are agreed quickly or not at all, and this one will be one or the other by the weekend.
Transfer targets3 Aug 2026
Radnik Surdulica have been asked whether they would lend him. Loans are agreed quickly or not at all, and this one will be one or the other by the weekend.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Player ratings3 Aug 2026
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 7.00 for the rest of it.
Squad3 Aug 2026
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Zoran Popović and Zeleznicar Pancevo agree another 2 years.
Market3 Aug 2026
The name of Clément Lhernault has come up in conversations Zeleznicar Pancevo were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Squad3 Aug 2026
“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 Zeleznicar Pancevo know it.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Miloš Kosanović 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 targets3 Aug 2026
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Slovan Bratislava have kept their man, and Zeleznicar Pancevo go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Squad3 Aug 2026
100 games in the shirt. Nobody sets out to build a record like that; it happens to a certain kind of player at a certain kind of club, and this town knows what it has.
Match1 Aug 2026
Behind, and beaten by any honest reading, until minute 89. IMT had the points in their pocket and a corner of the ground still believed, which is generally when it happens.
Market3 Aug 2026
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Zeleznicar Pancevo, another week without a signature from Zoran Popović.