The board have answered with money instead of encouragement, which is the only answer a manager ever wants. Spending it well is now entirely his problem.
15 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 dugout2 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 0‑1 defeat, delivered by Andrija Ilic to a room that had heard them before.
Petar Đuričković 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: 15. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
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.” Andrija Ilic kept it short after the 2‑1 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
Vuk Boškan is 20, 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 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.
A brace, and Vuk Boškan takes the afternoon — 8.98
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Vuk Boškan provided it, and the 8.98 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Position 3, 19 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
Petar Đuričković 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.
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.
He is 20, he is averaging 7.05, and older professionals have started passing to him in the difficult minutes. That last part is the real scouting report.
“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 Kabel know it.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Bogdan Lukic 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. Djordje Jovanovic is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Kabel told Andrej Milanović something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Trayal Kruševac in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Luka Stevanović has written the date down.
A year in and the language has not come, the city has not opened up, and he eats alone more often than anybody at Kabel would like to admit. It is showing on Saturdays.
In brief
The dugoutJake Dennis knocks on the manager's door
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Kabel this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
18 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 dugout5 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 0‑1 defeat, delivered by Andrija Ilic to a room that had heard them before.
The manager has re-ordered his thinking and Jake Dennis 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.
Nobody at Kabel 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.
Successful dribbles: 24. 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.
Petar Đuričković 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.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Andrija Ilic after the 2‑2 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
The dugoutUroš Zdjelarić asks for a word with the manager
8Edition
The Kabel Courier
21 Sep 2026
From our football correspondentUpbeat
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
Vuk Boškan, 20, plays like he has been here for years — 7.88
A mark of 7.88 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 20-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
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.
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Luka Stevanović, and the manager let it.
The dugout21 Sep 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.” Andrija Ilic, on a 1‑0 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
Ramazan Bayram 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.
14 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.
A season average of 7.01 at an age when most of his year group are still in the youth team. Kabel know what they have, and so, by now, does everybody else.
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 no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Filip Vlahovic 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Kabel this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“It is not the end of the world and it is not good enough. Both of those are true.” The manager, after a 0‑0 draw, said the honest thing and then went to say it again inside.
“I respect the manager and I am not going to sit here and pretend I am happy.” It is the most common sentence in football and it has never once been the end of a story.
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 28 arrived, 14 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed 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 Kabel this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The young player of the month award goes to a 20-year-old at Kabel who has looked like the finished article for four weekends running. The next four are the ones that decide whether he is.
Squad7 Sep 2026
18 new faces, and Kabel 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.
FAP Priboj next, and one man in the Kabel dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
Two goals and a mark of 9.36 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 18 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Strahinja Jeličić did not need any: 7.93, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
A defender on the scoresheet, which happens rarely enough that everybody in the ground remembers who took the corner. 1 for him, and a mark of 7.58 for the rest of it.
Petar Đuričković 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 21 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.
Petar Đuričković 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. Cukaricki have kept their man, and Kabel go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
He is 18 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 players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 1‑0, Andrija Ilic could afford to be generous.
The hardest thing about being 20 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Vuk Boškan did not need any: 7.99, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
He is doing things every Saturday that nobody around him can answer. It is flattering for a season and a problem after that, and Kabel know which stage they are at.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Kabel, another week without a signature from Luka Serdar.
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Kabel are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
Pavle Radojković is 20, and Kabel have signed him for the player he will be rather than the one he is. The first team can wait; the point of a deal like this is the years it buys.
The hardest thing about being 20 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Vuk Boškan did not need any: 7.96, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Cukaricki is saying, and nobody at Kabel is enjoying the guessing.
Petar Đuričković 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. Crvena Zvezda have kept their man, and Kabel go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Branislav Ivic is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Sasa Savic 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. Darko Tadic 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 academy exists for exactly this morning. Ivan Matic 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.
A point taken on 92 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
The dugoutThe manager makes an example of Srđan Grabež
There is no crueller way to lose a football match. Kabel scored in the 91th minute, the restart barely happened, and the away end was still standing when the whistle went.
Kabel asked and Panetolikos 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. Vuk Boškan 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 things every Saturday that nobody around him can answer. It is flattering for a season and a problem after that, and Kabel know which stage they are at.