46 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Jadran Luka Ploce lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Everything agreed with HNK Rijeka, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
Marko Đira 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. Rodina have kept their man, and Jadran Luka Ploce go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Ivan Cvijanović 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.
A player who expected to start watched it instead. The manager will call it a decision for the team; Stanislav Kritsyuk will call it something else in private.
Jadran Luka Ploce have made the call to Rodina. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
The hardest thing about being 17 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Jakov Dedić did not need any: 8.47, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Successful dribbles: 27. 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 Jadran Luka Ploce this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Jadran Luka Ploce asked and Vllaznia Shkodër said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
A 2‑1 win over Mladost Zdralovi, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
At 17 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.
It is the rarest sequence in football: supporters ask for something, and the club goes and does it. $1.7M for Šimun Mikolčić, and for one week nobody is complaining about anything.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Spartak Subotica have kept their man, and Jadran Luka Ploce go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Both clubs in the mire, one fixture between them, and a ground that will be louder and more frightened than at any point in the season. Jadran Luka Ploce know what is at stake and so does everybody in the away end.
The system has changed and his position has not. A footballer can improve his form; he cannot improve the manager’s formation, and that is the whole of the problem.
8 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.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 8 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
The hardest thing about being 17 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Jakov Dedić did not need any: 7.99, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Boubacar Diallo has just signed for Jadran Luka Ploce, and for once the answer mattered.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Jadran Luka Ploce have done the hard part with NK Osijek, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
Danijel Zagorac 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.
Everybody saw it before anybody said it. At 37 the numbers say 3 points down on what he was, and the question for Jadran Luka Ploce is how to handle a man they owe a great deal.
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.
In brief
Transfer targetsA loan move for Kirill Kravtsov is in the works
Danijel Zagorac 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 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.
Player ratings28 Dec 2026
Filip Bosak was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.20. 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 dugout28 Dec 2026
The view from the dugout
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” Mislav Bogdan, on a 1‑0 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
14 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Jadran Luka Ploce has to find a result from somewhere.
Player ratings21 Dec 2026
A brace, and Filip Bosak takes the afternoon — 9.22
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Filip Bosak provided it, and the 9.22 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
At 37, 3 points below where he was, and a body that has started charging interest. It happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph on this page.
Level with 85 minutes on the clock, after an afternoon Jadran Luka Ploce had all but put away. Solin will call it a point earned; the home dressing room will call it two given away, and both of them are right.
“It is not the end of the world and it is not good enough. Both of those are true.” The manager, after a 3‑3 draw, said the honest thing and then went to say it again inside.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Jadran Luka Ploce, and both men came out saying it was fine.
In brief
Player ratingsJakov Dedić beats them one at a time
13 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Jadran Luka Ploce has to find a result from somewhere.
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.
Josip Mijatović 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.
Both clubs in the mire, one fixture between them, and a ground that will be louder and more frightened than at any point in the season. Jadran Luka Ploce know what is at stake and so does everybody in the away end.
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.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Mislav Bogdan after 0‑1, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
Nobody at Jadran Luka Ploce 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.
12 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Jadran Luka Ploce has to find a result from somewhere.
Position 15 and 15 points, and the table gets read bottom-up in this part of town. The calendar has stopped being a schedule and started being a countdown.
Marko Đira 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: 19. 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 team sheet says it in public every week until it changes. The only version of being dropped a footballer cannot argue with, and the one he takes hardest.
Hrvoje Crnčec 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 won it back and then made something of it, which is two jobs and the reason the scoreline looks the way it does. 11 combined actions and a mark of 6.67, and not one of them will make a highlights package.
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.
Position 13, 15 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.
Successful dribbles: 14. 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 point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Mislav Bogdan after the 0‑0 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
In brief
The dugoutDražen Pilčić knocks on the manager’s door
The hardest thing about being 17 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Jakov Dedić did not need any: 7.79, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Jadran Luka Ploce this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
He is doing things every Saturday that nobody around him can answer. It is flattering for a season and a problem after that, and Jadran Luka Ploce know which stage they are at.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Mislav Bogdan after the 2‑2 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
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 Stanislav Kritsyuk is on it.
Numbers do not stay secret in a dressing room. He is not asking for more than he is worth; he is asking why somebody beside him is worth more, and Jadran Luka Ploce have no good answer.
He trains hard, says the right things and goes home to an empty flat. Nobody at Jadran Luka Ploce has done anything wrong, which is exactly what makes it so difficult to fix.
9 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.
Danijel Zagorac 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.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Filip Grabovac and Jadran Luka Ploce agree another 3 years.
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.
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.
“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.
Hrvatski Dragovoljac next, and one man in the Jadran Luka Ploce dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
7 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Jadran Luka Ploce has to find a result from somewhere.
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 5 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
Claude Gonçalves 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. 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.
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.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Mislav Bogdan after 0‑2, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
Djakovo Croatia next, and one man in the Jadran Luka Ploce dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
6 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Jadran Luka Ploce has to find a result from somewhere.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 6 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Nobody makes a documentary about a hamstring and everybody in the game fears one. Jadran Luka Ploce will be careful with the return date, because the second one is always worse than the first.
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.
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 4 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every 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 Jadran Luka Ploce this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager makes an example of Hrvoje Crnčec
Hrvoje Crnčec 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.
At 36, 3 points below where he was, and a body that has started charging interest. It happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph on this page.
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.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Jadran Luka Ploce told Jakov Dedić something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
The team at the top of the table next, and the honest measure of where this side actually is. Anybody can beat the club below them; the question is what happens against Grobnican.
Grobnican next, and one man in the Jadran Luka Ploce dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
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.
Danijel Zagorac 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.
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.
Everybody saw it before anybody said it. At 37 the numbers say 3 points down on what he was, and the question for Jadran Luka Ploce is how to handle a man they owe a great deal.
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Jadran Luka Ploce this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Everybody at Jadran Luka Ploce saw it before anybody said it, which is how this always goes. At 39 the decline is real and measurable — 3 points — and the only question left is how the club handles somebody it owes a great deal to.
“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.
The dugout28 Sep 2026
Marko Đira is still being punished for one mistake
Nobody will confirm it and the team sheets confirm it every week. One error has bought him a spell as second choice that is already longer than the error deserved.
Dugo Selo next, and one man in the Jadran Luka Ploce dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
Nobody at Jadran Luka Ploce 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.
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 dugout21 Sep 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.” Mislav Bogdan chose the glass-half-full version of 1‑1; the supporters left with the other one.
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.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is David Đurak’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Jadran Luka Ploce needing him to play as if none of it matters.
Jadran Luka Ploce had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Bendel Insurance, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
Successful dribbles: 21. 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.
Jadran Luka Ploce asked and Karlovac 1919 said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
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.
“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 Jadran Luka Ploce will have to give him a reason to stay or an exit.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Mislav Bogdan after the 0‑0 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
31 in and 20 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.
Everything agreed with Bendel Insurance, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Lokomotiv Gorna Oryahovitsa is saying, and nobody at Jadran Luka Ploce is enjoying the guessing.
There is a level at which a footballer stops being tested and starts being contained, and he reached it some time ago. Jadran Luka Ploce know it, and so does everybody who watches him.
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Jakov Dedić is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Jadran Luka Ploce, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Not a new contract, not a new number: a new place in the manager’s thinking, which is the only promotion in football that actually matters. Claude Gonçalves has moved up it.
A brace, and Jakov Dedić takes the afternoon — 8.74
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Jakov Dedić provided it, and the 8.74 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Jadran Luka Ploce asked and Lokomotiv Gorna Oryahovitsa 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 17-year-old it feels ownership of. Jakov Dedić 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 loan enquiry to Lokomotiv Gorna Oryahovitsa: cover, or a look at somebody the club cannot afford to buy yet. Either way the answer will come back inside the week.
Bendel Insurance 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.
The team sheet says it in public every week until it changes. The only version of being dropped a footballer cannot argue with, and the one he takes hardest.
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 deal with NK Maribor is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. DAC Dunajska Streda have kept their man, and Jadran Luka Ploce go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Jadran Luka Ploce are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
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.
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.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: another club keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Danijel Zagorac 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. Olimpija Ljubljana have kept their man, and Jadran Luka Ploce go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Signings arrive with a picture of the club in their head, and this one’s picture was bigger than the building. He will play well and he will be gone, in that order, and everybody knows it.
He is doing things every Saturday that nobody around him can answer. It is flattering for a season and a problem after that, and Jadran Luka Ploce know which stage they are at.
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Jadran Luka Ploce are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
20 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.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 9 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Dominik Pavlek is living that version at Jadran Luka Ploce, and it tends to show in the first month.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Danijel Zagorac and Jadran Luka Ploce agree another 2 years.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Jadran Luka Ploce this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Dino Kovac 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. Duje Kovac 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.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Fran Brekalo is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Duje Horvat 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.
Minute 87, against Trnje, 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Jadran Luka Ploce this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Aljoša Krstičević and Jadran Luka Ploce agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
A loan enquiry to Lokomotiva Zagreb: cover, or a look at somebody the club cannot afford to buy yet. Either way the answer will come back inside the week.
“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.
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.