The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Sturm Graz keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Mohamed Kessrioui 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.
The dugout8 Feb 2027
The manager has not finished forgetting Novak Tepšić'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.
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 NK Varazdin would admit. It shows on Saturdays.
“For the first time in years I am picked because somebody wants me in the team.” Hrvace suits him; the awkward conversation belongs to NK Varazdin, and the summer will force it.
Danil Prutsev has been around long enough to know what the spring feels like when it goes wrong, and he can feel it. A dressing room that is frightened plays like one.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager makes David Puclin a promise
“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 The request is on a desk at NK Varazdin, and it is not being withdrawn.
Boardroom1 Feb 2027
Deadline passes with 3 signed and 3 gone
That is the business done at NK Varazdin 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.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Mohamed Kessrioui and NK Varazdin agree another 3 years.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Dugo Selo waiting with a shirt. Nobody at NK Varazdin 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 The request is on a desk at NK Varazdin, and it is not being withdrawn.
The offer from Karlovac 1919 for Ivan Canjuga 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at NK Varazdin this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Add another name to the list: Lucko have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Luka Posinković. The answer from NK Varazdin has not changed — yet.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Frane Maglica trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason NK Varazdin will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 6 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
At 18 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.
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to David Puclin, and the manager let it.
The dugout14 Dec 2026
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 1‑2 defeat, delivered by Vedran Modric to a room that had heard them before.
1 error, one goal, and a night in front of the same three seconds. He will see it tonight, tomorrow and probably in February, and everybody who has played knows exactly which frame he keeps stopping on.
Every touch weighed, every quote parsed, every mistake replayed. Some players grow into that; some are quietly finished by it; nobody knows which until afterwards.
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
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.
“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 NK Varazdin, and 4 appearances in 17 say he has earned the hearing.
He found out with everybody else, an hour before kick-off, from a sheet of paper on a wall. Nobody at NK Varazdin pretended it was anything other than a decision about him.
0‑3 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.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
He found out with everybody else, an hour before kick-off, from a sheet of paper on a wall. Nobody at NK Varazdin pretended it was anything other than a decision about him.
Boardroom23 Nov 2026
Nobody left the NK Varazdin dressing room in a hurry
The door stayed shut a long time after the final whistle. What was said in there is between them; whether it worked is between them and Saturday.
“I watch every NK Varazdin game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Jarun Zagreb runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Vedran Modric after 0‑3, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer 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 NK Varazdin, and both men came out saying it was fine.
NK Osijek next, and one man in the NK Varazdin dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
8 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.
Two or more conceded in each of the last 5 matches. It is not one mistake repeating itself, which would be the easier thing to fix; it is a different one every week.
The board was up, the win was priced in, and then Hajduk Split scored. There is no worse minute to concede in and the ground emptied in the silence that follows one.
“I watch every NK Varazdin game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Jarun Zagreb runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Frane Maglica trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
The dugout26 Oct 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Vedran Modric was not hiding it after 2‑2, and nobody in the NK Varazdin dressing room was either.
In brief
SquadIvan Canjuga, 20, is the weekend’s best young player
Stipe Jurić had done his part in building a 2-goal cushion. What happened after that was collective, and Slaven Belupo were allowed back into a match that had been finished with.
At 20 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.
Half the programme played, position 9, 8 on the board. Doubling it is the sum every supporter has done and the only one nobody at the club will do out loud.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 3‑4, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
Matej Vuk 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 watch every NK Varazdin game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Jarun Zagreb runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Vedran Modric after 1‑2, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
The shape wanted a different profile against this opponent, which is a real football answer and no comfort at all to the man it is about. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Frane Maglica’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and NK Varazdin needing him to play as if none of it matters.
The words a physio says slowly. 17 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
The deal that would have taken Mario Mladenovski to NK Osijek has collapsed at the last stage, and he reports back to NK Varazdin with a summer to forget and a season still to play. Nobody is saying which side walked away.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
NK Varazdin close the window on a squad of their own making
1 in and 7 out, and no more changes for months. The manager has what he has, the supporters have their opinion of it, and the table will have the last word.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Panathinaikos keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Ivan Canjuga is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
Nothing is announced when this happens and everybody knows. He is a bigger part of the plan at NK Varazdin than he was a month ago, and the training ground worked that out before the team sheet said so.
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 7.98 for the rest of it.
NK Varazdin asked and Astana said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Successful dribbles: 14. 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.
The team at the top of the table next, and the honest measure of where this side actually is. Anybody can beat the club below them; the question is what happens against Dinamo Zagreb.
Every signing waits for it and every press conference asks about it until it comes. It has come, NK Varazdin have their man off the mark, and the second one is always easier.
Everything agreed with NK Osijek, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
Add another name to the list: Jarun Zagreb have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Fran Ivan Marić. The answer from NK Varazdin has not changed — yet.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Slavia Prague have kept their man, and NK Varazdin go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Tomislav Duvnjak 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.
Fran Ivan Marić 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.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 12 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Mario Marina commits to NK Varazdin for another 2 years.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Words at NK Varazdin training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Mario Marina 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 NK Varazdin this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Tomislav Duvnjak trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.