Ninety minutes of very little, and then everything at once. The winner arrived in the 86th, and HNK Rijeka spent what remained of the match appealing to the referee rather than chasing the ball.
The hardest thing about being 20 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Niko Farkaš did not need any: 7.97, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
13 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
Niko Farkaš 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.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Grobnican are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Grobnican asked and Rodina said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 20-year-old it feels ownership of. Niko Farkaš 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.
“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.
Boardroom1 Feb 2027
Deadline passes with 0 signed and 0 gone
That is the business done at Grobnican 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Grobnican this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 3 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Vllaznia Shkodër have kept their man, and Grobnican go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Squad1 Feb 2027
Words at Grobnican training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ivan Ikić 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.
Grobnican have made the call to Hajduk Split. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
In brief
Transfer targetsA loan move for Francisco Silva is in the works
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Leningradets have kept their man, and Grobnican go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Squad25 Jan 2027
Words at Grobnican training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ivan Ikić 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.
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
He found out with everybody else, an hour before kick-off, from a sheet of paper on a wall. Nobody at Grobnican pretended it was anything other than a decision about him.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Grobnican have done the hard part with Legia, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
Niko Farkaš 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Cibalia have kept their man, and Grobnican go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Two sides from the top of the table, one afternoon, and a month of talk decided in ninety minutes. Grobnican will not use the word title this week and will not stop thinking it.
The first defeat in 4 matches. The manager will say it had to come; the dressing room will say it did not have to come against Kustosija; the supporters will say both, in that order, all week.
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.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑1, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.06 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
4 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Marino Skelin is 20, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
11 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
Tonći Mujan 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.
Grobnican asked and Lech said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Two goals and a mark of 8.15 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
The kind of year that ends with a name being read out in a hall. Grobnican had the benefit of it every week and now have the problem of everybody else knowing.
3 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Grobnican this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Four weeks in which nobody in the division did his job better. The award goes on a shelf and the player goes back into the side, which is the order Grobnican prefer.
Mlada Boleslav 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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Ante Bolanča 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.
Every club pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time it has been tried.
Something was said to Antonio Marić and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
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.
10 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
Niko Farkaš 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Michal Strelec. 1‑0 against Trnje, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
The fixture the rest of the division is looking forward to more than either of the sides in it. Both know a win changes the season and a defeat does not end it, which is what makes it hard to play.
2 kept out from twelve yards, and a stadium that will describe each of them for twenty years. A goalkeeper needs one night like this in a career, and this was it.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.99 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
4 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.
Niko Farkaš 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.
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Grobnican this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Mislav Šimić is living that version at Grobnican, and it tends to show in the first month.
9 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Grobnican are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
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.
27 points, and the rest of the division looking up. Every side that finishes first spends the season pretending it is not thinking about it, and this one has started pretending.
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.
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
Half the programme played, position 1, 27 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 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.
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 Josip Vučković is on it.
The 85th minute, half the ground already edging towards the exits, and Michal Strelec decided nobody was going anywhere. Djakovo Croatia had no time left to answer.
Tonći Mujan 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.
Djakovo Croatia made Grobnican work for it, but the scoreboard read 1‑0 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Player ratings23 Nov 2026
Michal Strelec was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.04. 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.
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 1‑0, Dino Sutalo could afford to be generous.
Tonći Mujan 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Albert Kotlín was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Minute 86, against Bjelovar, and a goal that felt like a win to everybody who had stayed. It was a draw. Nobody leaving the ground will describe it as one.
6 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 Marino Skelin is on it.
The dugout9 Nov 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Dino Sutalo was not hiding it after 2‑2, and nobody in the Grobnican dressing room was either.
The first defeat in 12 matches. The manager will say it had to come; the dressing room will say it did not have to come against Segesta; the supporters will say both, in that order, all week.
The instruction has come from upstairs rather than from the dugout, which is the version of this conversation no manager enjoys. Somebody in that squad is now available whether the man who picks the team thinks so or not.
200 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.
The fixture the rest of the division is looking forward to more than either of the sides in it. Both know a win changes the season and a defeat does not end it, which is what makes it hard to play.
Every club pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time it has been tried.
Niko Farkaš 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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Ante Bolanča 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.
“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.
The dugout26 Oct 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am not going to get carried away and I will not let them either. It was a good day. There will be harder ones.” Dino Sutalo kept it short after the 2‑1 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
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.
In brief
SquadJosip Jurčević falls out with a teammate over standards
SquadThe division's best last weekend was a Grobnican man
3 kept out from twelve yards, and a stadium that will describe each of them for twenty years. A goalkeeper needs one night like this in a career, and this was it.
Hard to beat is not the same as winning, but 11 matches without defeat is a foundation Grobnican did not have in the autumn.
Player ratings19 Oct 2026
Niko Farkaš, 19, plays like he has been here for years — 7.61
A mark of 7.61 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 19-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Tonći Mujan 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.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 19 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.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 19 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Grobnican this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Something was said to Marino Skelin and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
Squad12 Oct 2026
21 new faces, and Grobnican are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
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 Marino Skelin is on it.
18 points, and the rest of the division looking up. Every side that finishes first spends the season pretending it is not thinking about it, and this one has started pretending.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 20 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.
“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 Grobnican know it.
At 19 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
Every club in football pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time somebody has tried it.
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.
Tonći Mujan 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.
Marked 7.74. Ask anyone leaving the ground what settled it and you will get one name, which is the only award that has ever really counted.
The dugout28 Sep 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am not going to get carried away and I will not let them either. It was a good day. There will be harder ones.” Dino Sutalo kept it short after the 1‑0 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
He wheeled away like a man who had been carrying it for months, because he had. Grobnican have their signing off the mark and one press-conference question retired.
13 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.
Mladost Zdralovi next, and one man in the Grobnican dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
26 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Grobnican lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Matej Momčilovski 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.
Marked 7.32 on an afternoon he ran from the first whistle to the last. Whatever else went wrong, Grobnican had the best player on the pitch.
The dugout21 Sep 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Dino Sutalo was not hiding it after 0‑0, and nobody in the Grobnican dressing room was either.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Words at Grobnican training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Josip Jurčević 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.
33 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Grobnican lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Central Espanol have kept their man, and Grobnican go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
21 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.
The words a physio says slowly. 41 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.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
Grobnican close the window on a squad of their own making
35 in and 19 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.
He is doing things every Saturday that nobody around him can answer. It is flattering for a season and a problem after that, and Grobnican know which stage they are at.
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 Marino Skelin is on it.
11 months left and silence from upstairs — no offer, no talks, nothing for his people to answer. Clubs that let a calendar do their negotiating usually end up negotiating with the calendar.
Varteks next, and one man in the Grobnican dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
Niko Farkaš, 19, plays like he has been here for years — 8.19
A mark of 8.19 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 19-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Mihael Bužić has, at Grobnican, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
Tonći Mujan 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.
Grobnican asked and BSK Bijelo Brdo said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 19-year-old it feels ownership of. Niko Farkaš 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.
A 1‑0 win over Sesvete, a place in the next round, and the quiet arithmetic every supporter does on the walk home: how many more until a final?
Match19 Aug 2026
Maro Kosović wins it after the whistle should have gone
107 minutes played. Maro Kosović found the finish in time that only existed because of earlier delays, and Sesvete went from a point to nothing inside one movement.
Tonći Mujan 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Sesvete have kept their man, and Grobnican go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 20-year-old it feels ownership of. Maro Kosović 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.
The name of Luka Žeželić has come up in conversations Grobnican were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
In brief
Player ratingsNobody on the pitch touched Tonći Mujan
Everything was agreed with another club and then the doctor spoke. Grobnican have walked away from a signing on the advice of somebody who never saw him play, which is how it is supposed to work.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Grobnican have done the hard part with NK Osijek, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Grobnican this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Antonio Perić 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.
He is doing his job and he is not settling. Grobnican were supposed to be a step up in his own reckoning, and his own reckoning has been adjusted since he arrived.
There is a level at which a footballer stops being tested and starts being contained, and he reached it some time ago. Grobnican know it, and so does everybody who watches him.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Ivan Ikić has just signed for Grobnican, and for once the answer mattered.
Tonći Mujan 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.
Grobnican asked and Istra 1961 said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Fran Bilic is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Robert Petkovic 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.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Darijo Pasalic 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.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Filip Ivanovic 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.
There is a level at which a footballer stops being tested and starts being contained, and he reached it some time ago. Grobnican know it, and so does everybody who watches him.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Filip Cetina and Grobnican agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
The dugout3 Aug 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 0‑1 Dino Sutalo left the room before anybody could ask which.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Grobnican this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Hajduk Split 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.
Grobnican have made the call to Istra 1961. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
Hajduk Split 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.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Radnik Krizevci in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.