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.
There is no crueller way to lose a football match. Dinamo Zagreb scored in the 95th minute, the restart barely happened, and the away end was still standing when the whistle went.
The offer from HNK Rijeka for Josip Mišić 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 right for me. I am not going to explain why to anybody except the people I owe an explanation to.” A deal agreed between two clubs, and a player who declined to be part of it.
$1.2M was the most the club would pay and HNK Rijeka were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
Mislav Oršić 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.
Squad17 Aug 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.
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.
“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.
Add another name to the list: NK Varazdin have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Fran Topić. The answer from Dinamo Zagreb has not changed — yet.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Words at Dinamo Zagreb training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Josip Mišić 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.
Successful dribbles: 16. 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.
Dinamo Zagreb have made the call to HNK Gorica. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
“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.
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.
Squad3 Aug 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.
Add another name to the list: HNK Rijeka have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Raúl Torrente. The answer from Dinamo Zagreb has not changed — yet.
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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Dion Beljo. 1‑0 against Istra 1961, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Marked 8.10 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.