“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Hajduk Split have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Hajduk Split asked and NK Osijek said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Toma Bašić was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Hadji Issa Moustapha 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.
He trains hard, says the right things and goes home to an empty flat. Nobody at Hajduk Split has done anything wrong, which is exactly what makes it so difficult to fix.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Hajduk Split, and both men came out saying it was fine.
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
The offer from Hrvatski Dragovoljac for Luka Hodak 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.
Boardroom1 Feb 2027
Deadline passes with 2 signed and 3 gone
That is the business done at Hajduk Split 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.
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.
$960.0K on the table at Rudes. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Hajduk Split asked and HNK Vukovar 1991 said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
$780.0K was the most the club would pay and Rudes 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Toma Bašić was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The offer from Lokomotiva Zagreb for Ron Raçi 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.
$1.6M was the most the club would pay and Lokomotiva Zagreb 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.
The offer went to HNK Gorica this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Rudes have kept their man, and Hajduk Split 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 Hajduk Split this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Nobody at Hajduk Split 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 listened, I thought about it, and I am staying. That is the whole story.” The clubs had agreed a fee. Jakub Markovič had not agreed to go, which turned out to be the part that mattered.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Hajduk Split have lost him in all but the paperwork.
Mateusz Bogusz 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 interest is real enough to have reached print. Hajduk Split have said nothing, which in a transfer window is its own kind of answer.
Squad18 Jan 2027
Words at Hajduk Split training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Patrick Pentz 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 level at which a footballer stops being tested and starts being contained, and he reached it some time ago. Hajduk Split know it, and so does everybody who watches him.
Some transfers need a press campaign. This one needed a shirt with the old number on it. Toma Bašić is a Hajduk Split player again, and the town has its story of the summer.
$1.4M on the table at Lokomotiva Zagreb. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Hajduk Split offered $1.6M; HNK Rijeka 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.
The bid was some way short and Hajduk Split did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Squad11 Jan 2027
Patrick Pentz 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 terraces11 Jan 2027
Hajduk Split spend $9.0M on the signing the town wanted
It is the rarest sequence in football: supporters ask for something, and the club goes and does it. $9.0M for Toma Bašić, and for one week nobody is complaining about anything.
The offer went to Venezia this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
An individual honour is a strange thing in a team game, and the best of them are never argued with. He has had the sort of year that ends with his name being read out, and Hajduk Split have had the benefit of it.
The offer went to HNK Rijeka this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
Add another name to the list: Slaven Belupo have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Toni Silić. The answer from Hajduk Split has not changed — yet.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Hajduk Split this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Patrick Pentz was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Michele Šego 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 am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Hajduk Split, and 5 appearances in 19 say he has earned the hearing.
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 Leander Dendoncker is on it.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Hajduk Split have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Squad21 Dec 2026
Patrick Pentz 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.
Hadji Issa Moustapha 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 at Hajduk Split 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.
4‑1 against Lokomotiv Sofia, and a performance that will change how the rest of the competition talks about this club. Reputations in continental football are built in single evenings and this was one.
At 33 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 9.63 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Leander Dendoncker scored, was marked 7.97, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Šimun Hrgović and Hajduk Split agree another 4 years.
Patrick Pentz 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 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Šimun Hrgović 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.
200 games in this shirt, through managers and relegations and everything else. Service like it is disappearing from the game and the crowd knows what it is watching.
First, on 45 points. The table is a fact and a fact is allowed to be enjoyed, which is as far as anybody at the club is prepared to go in public.
Squad7 Dec 2026
Patrick Pentz 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 was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Hajduk Split this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
At 21 he was better than everybody his age in the division for four weeks running, which is harder than one good afternoon. Hajduk Split will try not to make too much of it.
Nobody at Hajduk Split 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 is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Hajduk Split told Roko Brajković something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Šimun Hrgović signs something — a contract at Hajduk Split or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
In brief
Loan watchThe goals keep arriving from Noa Skoko’s exile
The dugoutThe manager makes Ivica Ivušić a promise
0‑3 against Ajax. 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.
Match26 Nov 2026
After 14 games, Hajduk Split finally taste it again
The first defeat in 14 matches. The manager will say it had to come; the dressing room will say it did not have to come against Ajax; the supporters will say both, in that order, all week.
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Hajduk Split this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“I watch every Hajduk Split game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Lucko runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
The dugout30 Nov 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 0‑3 defeat, delivered by Milan Majer to a room that had heard them before.
In brief
The dugoutThe team sheet said everything about Jakub Markovič
Beat anybody else and it is three points. Beat them, with his name on it, and it is a year of bragging rights for Hajduk Split and a story that will outlast his contract.
10 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Hajduk Split this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Nobody at Hajduk Split 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. Abdoulie Sanyang provided it, and the 8.83 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
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.
Squad16 Nov 2026
Words at Hajduk Split training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Patrick Pentz 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.
Michele Šego and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Player ratings16 Nov 2026
Carlos Martín was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.10. 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.
Dinamo Zagreb next, which means a week that starts on Monday. Everything else on this page will be forgotten by Saturday; this fixture will not be forgotten for a year.
Minute 95, against HNK Rijeka, 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.
41 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.
The unbeaten run reaches 12. Some of them were wins and some were escapes, but a side that refuses to lose is a side other dressing rooms talk about.
Player ratings9 Nov 2026
A brace, and Marko Livaja takes the afternoon — 8.83
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Marko Livaja provided it, and the 8.83 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Patrick Pentz was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Michele Šego 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. Adrion Pajaziti 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 Slaven Belupo, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
In brief
Looking aheadThe big one: HNK Rijeka come into view
The dugoutNo place for Marko Livaja on the big day
At 33 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 10.00 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
5 straight away victories. Sides that win away are usually sides that can defend and can counter, and the table has begun to reflect what those journeys have earned.
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 11 goals between Hajduk Split and Lokomotiva Zagreb, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
5‑1 against Partizan, on a night that will be replayed at this club for a generation. Continental reputations are made in single evenings and this was the evening.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 9.80 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
4 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
6 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Hajduk Split and Partizan in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Patrick Pentz 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.
Marked 9.09 — 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.
He is 22 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.
Patrick Pentz 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 version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.37, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Player ratings19 Oct 2026
Mateusz Bogusz was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.07. 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 am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Hajduk Split, and 2 appearances in 9 say he has earned the hearing.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Michele Šego. 1‑0 against NK Varazdin, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Nobody at Hajduk Split 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.
In brief
The dugoutSomebody else is better right now than Ivica Ivušić
2‑1 against Lokomotiv Sofia, under lights, against people who do not speak the same language as the crowd. These are the evenings a club measures its decade in, and there are never as many of them as anybody expects.
Some goals win a match and some take one off somebody else. Michele Šego scored in the 88th minute, Lokomotiv Sofia had already begun thinking about the journey home, and Hajduk Split took the lot.
A midfielder is measured on whether the team functions when he is on the pitch, which is nearly impossible to see and completely obvious in retrospect. 14 actions, 7.33, and a manager who will not be substituting him again in a hurry.
The medical room confirms 23 days on the sidelines for Karl Harry Leban, and a plan built around him now has to be rebuilt.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Patrick Pentz 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.
Michele Šego 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: 40. 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.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Patrick Pentz 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 was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Hajduk Split this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Mateusz Bogusz. 2‑1 against Istra 1961, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
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.
10 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.
Nobody's fault and entirely his: a goal that goes into the book with his name against it and nothing about it intended. Hajduk Split deserved better, and so did he.
In brief
The dugoutThe view from the dugout
The dugoutCarlos Martín has become a man the manager trusts
1‑0 against Dinamo Zagreb, and the songs went on long after the whistle. League positions come and go; days like this get retold at family dinners for years.
1‑3 against Ajax. Continental football is unforgiving about the things a domestic league lets a side get away with, and this was a night spent finding out which of those the club still has.
There were 88 minutes on the clock and Dinamo Zagreb had all but banked the point. Football rarely reads the room, and Hajduk Split did not stop to explain themselves.
Score against anybody else and it is a goal. Score against them and it is a story with your name in it for a decade, and Hajduk Split supporters have already started telling it.
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.
“I watch every Hajduk Split game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Lucko runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Abdoulie Sanyang provided it, and the 9.51 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
19 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.
Successful dribbles: 22. 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.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Words at Hajduk Split training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Patrick Pentz 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.
He is 22 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 particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Adrion Pajaziti provided it, and the 8.21 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 4 arrived, 2 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
8 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Hajduk Split and Slaven Belupo in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
“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.
There comes a point where a club either backs its own ambition or admits it does not have any. Hajduk Split have paid $3.6M for Jakub Markovič, which is the loudest way there is of saying which one it chose.
Patrick Pentz 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.
Every run ends on an afternoon somebody had marked down as routine. This one went 4 matches, which is long enough that a town had stopped counting, and short enough that it will remember exactly who stopped it.
10 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.
There is a level at which a footballer stops being tested and starts being contained, and he reached it some time ago. Hajduk Split know it, and so does everybody who watches him.
Successful dribbles: 40. 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.
HNK Gorica will want this one forgotten quickly: 3‑0, every duel lost, and a long ride home. Hajduk Split were ruthless in the way good sides are ruthless.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 9.71 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
This is not cover and nobody is pretending it is. $3.6M has been paid because Patrick Pentz is straightforwardly better than what was already here, and the club has decided to stop waiting.
$3.6M on the table at Slavia Prague. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
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.
Hajduk Split and Jablonec have settled on $8.2M. 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 board had gone up, the arguing had started, and then the ball was in the net in the 94th minute. NK Osijek will replay every second of the added time for a week.
There comes a point where a club either backs its own ambition or admits it does not have any. Hajduk Split have paid $10.5M for Mateusz Bogusz, which is the loudest way there is of saying which one it chose.
$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.
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.
Hajduk Split 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.
The chase for Hadji Issa Moustapha ended with $350.0K changing hands and HNK Gorica out of reasons to say no. The supporters will judge the fee the only way that matters: on Saturdays.
Mateusz Bogusz was the name on every phone-in, and the club has gone and signed him for $10.5M. For one week the board can do no wrong, which is a week most boards never get.
Hajduk Split offered $16.9M; Slavia Prague 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.
The offer went to Houston Dynamo this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
Hajduk Split have gone to Brondby with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
The offer from Hrvatski Dragovoljac for Marino Skelin 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.
HNK Vukovar 1991 pay $98.0K, and the deal is done. The number reads well on a balance sheet; whether it reads well on the pitch is next season's question.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Hajduk Split this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The offer went to Slavia Prague this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
Two goals and a mark of 8.57 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Hajduk Split asked and Zenit said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Michele Šego 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.
At 20 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.
Add another name to the list: Hrvatski Dragovoljac have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Marino Skelin. The answer from Hajduk Split has not changed — yet.