From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match22 Aug 2026
Lucko bow out of the cup
Segesta go through and Lucko go home, 0‑1 the scoreline that did it. The dressing room will call the league the priority now, because that is what dressing rooms say.
Squad24 Aug 2026
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.
Boardroom24 Aug 2026
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $40.2K — a club that wants Đivo Pregelj enough to be asked twice.
Transfer targets24 Aug 2026
$41.0K was the most the club would pay and Kustosija 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.
Transfer targets24 Aug 2026
Lucko asked and Slaven Belupo said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
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.
Squad24 Aug 2026
A falling-out at Lucko
David Tabak and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
The dugout24 Aug 2026
Bruno Cop faces the questions
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Bruno Cop after 0‑1, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
Squad24 Aug 2026
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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad17 Aug 2026
10 saves, and a scoreline the ten men in front of him had no right to. Goalkeepers only get noticed on the bad days; this was one of the other ones.
Transfer targets17 Aug 2026
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Slaven Belupo is saying, and nobody at Lucko is enjoying the guessing.
Squad17 Aug 2026
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Marino Kukoč and Lucko agree another 4 years.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Mykyta Shevchenko 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.
Transfer targets17 Aug 2026
Lucko asked and Hajduk Split said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Match15 Aug 2026
Beaten 0‑1, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Words exchanged at Lucko
David Tabak 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.
Market17 Aug 2026
“There is a gap, and pretending there is not helps nobody.” Neither side has moved, and the calendar is working for exactly one of them.
The dugout17 Aug 2026
Bruno Cop faces the questions
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Bruno Cop after 0‑1, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match8 Aug 2026
4‑0, and the margin flattered nobody — it could have carried another goal or two without complaint. Afternoons like this are why people keep coming.
Squad10 Aug 2026
The match ball belongs to Filip Mihaljević, whose 3 goals turned a difficult afternoon into a procession.
Player ratings10 Aug 2026
At 34 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 9.60 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Squad10 Aug 2026
A move Talha Tabaković would have made for nothing
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Talha Tabaković is living that version at Lucko, and it tends to show in the first month.
Player ratings10 Aug 2026
The hardest thing about being 20 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Abdoul Salla Camara did not need any: 7.79, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Transfer targets10 Aug 2026
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at NK Osijek is saying, and nobody at Lucko is enjoying the guessing.
Transfer targets10 Aug 2026
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
The terraces10 Aug 2026
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.
Market10 Aug 2026
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Ivan Boric 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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad3 Aug 2026
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Niko Đolonga and Lucko agree another 4 years.
Transfer targets3 Aug 2026
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Tempers go at Lucko
David Tabak 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.
Market3 Aug 2026
Nobody at Lucko has picked up the phone to Niko Đolonga
49 months to run and not a word offered. A club that lets the calendar negotiate for it usually ends up losing to the calendar.
Transfer targets3 Aug 2026
A loan enquiry to NK Osijek: cover, or a look at somebody the club cannot afford to buy yet. Either way the answer will come back inside the week.
Transfer targets3 Aug 2026
A loan move for Ivan Vasiljević is in the works
Lucko have made the call to Istra 1961. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Lucko are still strangers to each other
6 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.
Match1 Aug 2026
Lucko and Solin take a point apiece
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 dugout3 Aug 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.” Bruno Cop chose the glass-half-full version of 1‑1; the supporters left with the other one.