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.
The hardest thing about being 18 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Dražen Jaman did not need any: 7.61, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
5 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Hrvatski Dragovoljac has to find a result from somewhere.
Giovanni Jerolimov 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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Leandro Gelpi trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
In brief
Player ratingsThe pass was always on for Andrej Mićić
Player ratingsBranko Pavić spends the afternoon fouling
Antonio Jakoliš 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.
3 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Luis Ibáñez 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.
6 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.
Marked 4.65. Nothing he attempted worked and by the hour mark he had stopped attempting much, which is the part a manager notices rather than the mistakes.
Ninety minutes, no goals, and the argument started before the car park emptied: a point gained, or two thrown away against Imotski? Both sides of it will still be going on Thursday.
Antonio Jakoliš 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.
48 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.
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.
Leandro Gelpi is 35 and has run out of things to prove. What he has left is where to stand, when to slow it down and what to say at half-time, and none of that is on a fitness chart.
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Hrvatski Dragovoljac this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Still no offer on the table, and Filip Šušković-Jakopac’s deal keeps shrinking. In boardroom language, silence this long stops being an oversight and starts being an answer.