Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Radnicki Nis they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Radnicki Nis had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at HNK Rijeka, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
Squad17 Jul 2028
Bubacar Djaló 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.
The most common injury in the game and the most rushed back from. Radnicki Nis will quote 14 days and will be careful with it, because the second one is always worse than the first.
Đorđe Jovanović 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.
The offer from Ypsonas for Maid Ahmed 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.
Add another name to the list: Dinamo Vranje have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Abdul Razak Yusif. The answer from Radnicki Nis has not changed — yet.
$15.0K on the table at Javor-Matis. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
“I have done everything asked of me in training and it has not changed a thing on a Saturday.” The most familiar complaint in football, and one Radnicki Nis will have to answer with minutes or with a transfer.
Signed today, seen by nobody for years, and one of them may one day be the reason the club exists. That is the whole of the argument for an academy, and it is a good one.
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 Alexandr Shestyuk is on it.
“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 The request is on a desk at Radnicki Nis, and it is not being withdrawn.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Partizan keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Bubacar Djaló was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Crvena Zvezda have kept their man, and Radnicki Nis 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 Radnicki Nis this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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 Bubacar Djaló is on it.
$3.0M is a serious amount of money and it does not play centre-forward. Everybody in the dressing room knows who used to be looked at when it went wrong.
The offer from Trayal Kruševac for Abdul Razak Yusif 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.
He is going to Partizan, the club has $3.0M it did not have on Friday, and the phone-ins have already decided how they feel about that. Selling well and selling somebody they loved are not the same skill.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Radnicki Nis is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Crvena Zvezda is saying, and nobody at Radnicki Nis is enjoying the guessing.
Bubacar Djaló 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 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 Radnicki Nis know it.
Radnicki Nis asked and Javor-Matis said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Words at Radnicki Nis training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Bubacar Djaló 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.
At 33, 3 points below where he was, and a body that has started charging interest. It happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph on this page.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Radnicki Nis this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. Radnicki Nis will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Radnicki Nis, and both men came out saying it was fine.
“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 Radnicki Nis, and it is not being withdrawn.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Radnicki Nis is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Nobody at Radnicki Nis 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 had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Radnicki Nis, and both men came out saying it was fine.
“Judge me on him.” Managers do not say that kind of thing by accident — it moves the pressure from Franck Kanouté’s shoulders onto his own, and both of them know it.
Nobody writes a headline about a tutor. Nobody has to be told, either, what happens to a signing who spends two years being the man nobody can talk to at lunch.
Match22 May 2028
Nothing left to play for but pride at Radnicki Nis
42 points in position 8: too many to go down, too few to go anywhere. The honest description of a season like this is a shrug, and the supporters have already given it.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Radnicki Nis can pretend not to have heard.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Lazar Nikolić and Radnicki Nis agree another 3 years.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Bubacar Djaló was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
11 goals in 25 games at Kifisia — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Radnicki Nis updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
Nobody at Radnicki Nis 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Radnicki Nis can pretend not to have heard.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Radnicki Nis they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad24 Apr 2028
Words at Radnicki Nis training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Bubacar Djaló 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.
Miljan Momčilović 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.
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.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Radnicki Nis, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Radnicki Nis. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Radnicki Nis can pretend not to have heard.
“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 Radnicki Nis know it.
Nobody at Radnicki Nis 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.
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Miloš Šatara has written the date down.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Radnicki Nis, another week without a signature from Maid Ahmed.
“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 Radnicki Nis, and it is not being withdrawn.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Radnicki Nis is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Bubacar Djaló was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
7 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
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 Bubacar Djaló is on it.
Two goals and a mark of 8.85 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Radnicki Nis is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Radnicki Nis this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Behind, and beaten by any honest reading, until minute 96. OFK Beograd had the points in their pocket and a corner of the ground still believed, which is generally when it happens.
8 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
Radnicki Nis close the window on a squad of their own making
7 in and 4 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.
Some transfers need a press campaign. This one needed a shirt with the old number on it. Miodrag Gemović is a Radnicki Nis player again, and the town has its story of the summer.
The shirt still fits. Milan Mirosavljev is back at Radnicki Nis, and half the ground remembers him in these colours already. Some signings need selling to the town; this one sold itself.
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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Javor-Matis have kept their man, and Radnicki Nis go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Babacar Mboup. 1‑0 against Trayal Kruševac, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
The clock did what IMT would not, and ended it. Supporters who watched the countdown will spend the next window doing it again.
Player ratings7 Feb 2028
Bojan Kovačević was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.06. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Radnicki Nis can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
In brief
SquadA place in the month's best eleven for Arbër Hoxha
The clubs have shaken hands with IMT; the player has not yet. Personal terms are next, and personal terms are where more deals die than anybody prints.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Radnicki Nis is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Bubacar Djaló was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Rostov have kept their man, and Radnicki Nis go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Babacar Mboup. 1‑0 against Borac Čačak, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Đorđe Jovanović 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.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Smederevo 1924 waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Radnicki Nis is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Radnicki Nis can pretend not to have heard.
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 7.50 for the rest 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Babacar Mboup. 2‑0 against Novi Pazar, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Radnicki Nis is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad18 Oct 2027
Bubacar Djaló 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.
Trayal Kruševac held the lead for 2 minutes, which is not long enough to enjoy it. Radnicki Nis answered before the celebration had properly finished, and the shape of the afternoon changed with it.
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.
“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 Radnicki Nis, and it is not being withdrawn.
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Boardroom6 Sep 2027
Deadline passes with 14 signed and 12 gone
That is the business done at Radnicki Nis 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Bubacar Djaló was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Radnicki Nis asked and Novi Pazar said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Stefan Nikolić 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.
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Radnicki Nis are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
“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 Radnicki Nis, and 1 appearances in 11 say he has earned the hearing.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Radnicki Nis will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Sparta Prague have kept their man, and Radnicki Nis 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 Radnicki Nis this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Dinamo Zagreb 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.
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 Alexandr Shestyuk is on it.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Radnicki Nis have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Radnicki Nis they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Issah Abass 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.
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Squad12 Apr 2027
Bubacar Djaló 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.
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.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Radnicki Nis, and both men came out saying it was fine.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Radnicki Nis, another week without a signature from Luka Izderić.
16 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Radnicki Nis lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Boardroom1 Feb 2027
Radnicki Nis close the window on a squad of their own making
2 in and 1 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: Krasnodar keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
“I did not come here to warm up in front of people.” He is out of contract eventually, he is old enough to count the weeks, and Radnicki Nis will have to give him a reason to stay or an exit.
In brief
Transfer targetsA loan move for Matvey Lukin is in the works
27 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Radnicki Nis lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
0‑5 against Besiktas. The honest reading is not that the players were poor; it is that the distance between this club and that one is currently measured in things money takes years to buy.
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.
Ibrahim Mustapha 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.
Nobody at Radnicki Nis 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.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Milan Mirosavljev provided it, and the 8.93 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
The board have answered with money instead of encouragement, which is the only answer a manager ever wants. Spending it well is now entirely his problem.
“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 Radnicki Nis, and 8 appearances in 10 say he has earned the hearing.
The dugout2 Nov 2026
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 2‑3 Nemanja Gacinovic left the room before anybody could ask which.
Nobody at Radnicki Nis 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.
Two goals and a mark of 8.25 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Radnicki Nis this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
He is 20 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.
2 goals inside twenty minutes with Franck Kanouté in the middle of it, and IMT unable to get near the ball long enough to change anything. Some matches are won before the first drink.
10 combined actions and 7.80. 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.
18 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
Radnicki Nis and Mačva Šabac have settled on $1.5M. The rest belongs to the player and his agent, and a supporter who has watched one of these before knows not to buy the shirt yet.
The offer from Omonoia for Dušan Jovanović 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.
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 18 arrived, 3 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
Janko Jevremović 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.
Radnicki Nis asked and CSKA Moscow said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Franck Kanouté is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
He used to be one of the options. He is now one of the men the options are picked around, and the change happened quietly enough that only the dressing room noticed on the day.
Nobody at Radnicki Nis 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.
Zeleznicar Pancevo next, and one man in the Radnicki Nis dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.