Ognjen Čančarević 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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 20-year-old it feels ownership of. Miloš Jović 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 2‑0 win over Crvena Zvezda, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Squad15 Feb 2027
5 new faces, and IMT 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.
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 2‑0, Nenad Ivic could afford to be generous.
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.
At 20 he is being measured against the rest of the division's kids and coming out in front. The senior version of this award is where the club would like this to lead.
Ninety specific minutes wanted a different sort of player, and the manager picked one. He is not out of form and he is not in the side, and both are true.
In brief
The dugoutNikola Glišić knocks on the manager’s door
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” IMT have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Benfica keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Yaniv Edery has, at IMT, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
Stefan Šapić 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.
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 9.38, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Boardroom1 Feb 2027
IMT close the window on a squad of their own making
3 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 deal that would have taken Charly Keita to OFK Beograd has collapsed at the last stage, and he reports back to IMT with a summer to forget and a season still to play. Nobody is saying which side walked away.
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 8 goals between IMT and Mladost Lucani, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
IMT asked and Liberty Professionals 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 have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what IMT can pretend not to have heard.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around IMT they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
IMT had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Persik, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at IMT this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
IMT asked and Aston Villa said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Squad25 Jan 2027
Stefan Šapić 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.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Sporting CP is saying, and nobody at IMT is enjoying the guessing.
Every run ends on an afternoon somebody had marked down as routine. This one went 8 matches, which is long enough that a town had stopped counting, and short enough that it will remember exactly who stopped it.
Ognjen Čančarević 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. Sunderland have kept their man, and IMT go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Stefan Šapić was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around IMT people have started saying his name in the past tense.
The hardest thing about being 20 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Salim Musah did not need any: 8.24, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Legia keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Ognjen Čančarević 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.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Junior Kamwa has, at IMT, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 20-year-old it feels ownership of. Salim Musah 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 hardest thing about being 20 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Salim Musah did not need any: 7.75, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at IMT, another week without a signature from Oluwaseun Oladimeji.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at IMT this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Adrian Ziarek has just signed for IMT, and for once the answer mattered.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Stefan Šapić 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.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Nenad Ivic after the 1‑1 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
Stefan Šapić 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Vicky Kiankaulua 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.
It finished 1‑1, and it somehow always looked like it would. One of those afternoons where the table moves less than the tempers.
The dugout21 Dec 2026
The view from the dugout
“We did not lose. Some weeks that is all you get, and I would rather have the point than not.” Nenad Ivic chose the glass-half-full version of 1‑1; the supporters left with the other one.
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.
Nobody at IMT is suggesting he is out of form. The manager simply wanted somebody with a different set of qualities for ninety specific minutes, and there is nothing a player can train to fix that.
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.
Radnicki Nis next, and one man in the IMT dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
Stefan Šapić 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 20-year-old it feels ownership of. Salim Musah 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 academy exists for exactly this morning. Lazar Babic 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.
2 goals inside twenty minutes with Nikola Glišić in the middle of it, and Cukaricki unable to get near the ball long enough to change anything. Some matches are won before the first drink.
14 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. IMT lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
At 22 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.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Stefan Šapić 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.
22 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. IMT lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at IMT this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
A point taken on 85 minutes is worth exactly one point and considerably more than that to a dressing room. This side does not stop, which is a reputation worth more than the result.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Vicky Kiankaulua was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. IMT told Vladimir Radočaj something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
It needed Salim Musah to find the net to bring anything home at all: 1‑1 against Radnik Surdulica, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
The words a physio says slowly. 30 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.
8 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.
Ognjen Čančarević 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: 17. 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.
1‑1, and both dressing rooms will call it two points lost. A draw that asked plenty of questions and answered none of them.
The dugout23 Nov 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Nenad Ivic was not hiding it after 1‑1, and nobody in the IMT dressing room was either.
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.
Chances created: 9. Not on the scoresheet and not remotely anonymous — a passing performance that pulled a defence apart without leaving a mark on the column that gets read.
In brief
The dugoutStefan Šapić knocks on the manager's door
Ognjen Čančarević 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.
Zeleznicar Pancevo left with the points after a 0‑2 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Squad16 Nov 2026
Stefan Šapić 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.
Successful dribbles: 18. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
The dugout16 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 0‑2 Nenad Ivic left the room before anybody could ask which.
Something was said to Marko Luković and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
The manager wanted a different profile for this opponent, which is a real football reason and no consolation. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Milos Markovic 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.
Squad9 Nov 2026
Stefan Šapić 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.
Position 11, 16 points, and every result so far reduced to one line. The second half of the season starts with the same squad and a different set of expectations.
“There are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 1‑1, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 6 goals between IMT and Crvena Zvezda, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at IMT this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad2 Nov 2026
Stefan Šapić 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.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Nenad Ivic after 2‑4, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
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.
Vladimir Radočaj 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.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Stefan Šapić 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.
100 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.
Something was said to Ibrahima Kébé and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at IMT, and both men came out saying it was fine.
The dugout26 Oct 2026
The view from the dugout
“We did not lose. Some weeks that is all you get, and I would rather have the point than not.” Nenad Ivic chose the glass-half-full version of 1‑1; the supporters left with the other one.
In brief
Looking aheadIMT take on the side everybody is chasing
Ognjen Čančarević 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.
Successful dribbles: 17. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Ismael Casas 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.
Some games turn on a moment; this one turned on a man. 7.79 on the card, and the IMT support went home talking about one name.
The dugout19 Oct 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 1‑2 defeat, delivered by Nenad Ivic to a room that had heard them before.
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.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Slobodan Maksimovic 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. Predrag Krsticic 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 board was up, the win was priced in, and then TSC scored. There is no worse minute to concede in and the ground emptied in the silence that follows one.
“There are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 1‑1, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at IMT 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 Stefan Šapić was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Squad5 Oct 2026
10 new faces, and IMT 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.
Squad5 Oct 2026
A place in the month's best eleven for Vuk Borović
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Vuk Borović has come out of that comparison in the side, and IMT have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
“It is not the end of the world and it is not good enough. Both of those are true.” The manager, after a 1‑1 draw, said the honest thing and then went to say it again inside.
Ognjen Čančarević 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 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.
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.
7 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.
Ognjen Čančarević 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 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 IMT will have to give him a reason to stay or an exit.
Vuk Borović is 18, and for one weekend he was the best of everybody his age in the division. Nobody should build a career on it and everybody quietly does.
The manager wanted a different profile for this opponent, which is a real football reason and no consolation. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
6 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.
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.
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.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Predrag Pavlovic 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. Stefan Savic 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.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Stefan Šapić 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 run now stands at 5, and the questions being asked around IMT are no longer polite ones.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
Deadline passes with 18 signed and 2 gone
That is the business done at IMT 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 IMT 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 Vicky Kiankaulua was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
11 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.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑2, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
The manager has re-ordered his thinking and Miloš Jović has come out of it lower. He will be told it is temporary, and the players who have heard that before will avoid his eye.
Ognjen Čančarević 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.
Crvena Zvezda paid $260.0K and IMT took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Radnicki Nis have kept their man, and IMT go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
15 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
“There are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 0‑0, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.
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.
In brief
SquadMiloš Jović is the weekend's best young player
Sankara Karamoko had done his part in building a 3-goal cushion. What happened after that was collective, and Javor-Matis were allowed back into a match that had been finished with.
Two goals and a mark of 9.05 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
The hardest thing about being 20 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Miloš Jović did not need any: 9.16, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
7.47, 1 on the scoresheet, and the specific comedy of a back-four player celebrating like somebody who does this every week. He does not, and that is exactly why the ground reacted the way it did.
IMT had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Birmingham, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
Ognjen Čančarević 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Stefan Šapić 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.
Moussa Sissako has gone, the accounts have $740.0K in them, and the supporters have the feeling of having been sold something themselves. Good business and a good decision are not always the same thing.
The offer from OFK Beograd for Vasilije Novičić 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 clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Sporting CP keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Crvena Zvezda paid $740.0K and IMT took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at IMT, another week without a signature from Oluwaseun Oladimeji.
Everything agreed with another club, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
Ognjen Čančarević 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.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Dusan Gacinovic 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 no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Vladimir Nastasic 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 no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Predrag Babic 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.
The board had gone up, the arguing had started, and then the ball was in the net in the 93th minute. Zeleznicar Pancevo will replay every second of the added time for a week.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at IMT this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Successful dribbles: 20. 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.
A 2‑1 win over Zeleznicar Pancevo, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
At 22 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.
Marked 8.40 — 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.