Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 9 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Novi Pazar this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Beaten 1‑2, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Squad28 Dec 2026
Words at Novi Pazar training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Stefan Denić 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.
The dugout28 Dec 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 1‑2 Nenad Simic left the room before anybody could ask which.
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.
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.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Mladost Lucani in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
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 players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 2‑0, Nenad Simic could afford to be generous.
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.
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.
Tomislav Dadić 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 pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Jovan Manev, and the manager let it.
Squad14 Dec 2026
Stefan Denić 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.
A 1‑1 draw with Spartak Subotica leaves the dressing room somewhere between relief and regret.
The dugout14 Dec 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Nenad Simic was not hiding it after 1‑1, and nobody in the Novi Pazar dressing room was either.
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
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.
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. Novi Pazar will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Novi Pazar this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Novi Pazar, and 3 appearances in 17 say he has earned the hearing.
Squad7 Dec 2026
Words at Novi Pazar training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Stefan Denić 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.
The young player of the month award goes to a 20-year-old at Novi Pazar who has looked like the finished article for four weekends running. The next four are the ones that decide whether he is.
The manager has re-ordered his thinking and Fejsal Mulić 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.
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 Ümit Akdağ is on it.
“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.
Two goals and a mark of 8.69 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
A mark of 8.10 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.
A season average of 7.01 at an age when most of his year group are still in the youth team. Novi Pazar know what they have, and so, by now, does everybody else.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Novi Pazar this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
12 combined actions and 7.55. The job he did is the one that shows up as other people looking good, and the only reliable way to notice it is to watch what happens on the afternoons he is missing.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 20-year-old it feels ownership of. Dimitrije Janković 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.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Novi Pazar are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Position 5, 24 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.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Nenad Simic after 0‑2, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Novi Pazar, and both men came out saying it was fine.
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.
Radnicki Nis next, and one man in the Novi Pazar dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
4 goals in 9 games at Radnik Krizevci — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Novi Pazar updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
“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 Novi Pazar will have to give him a reason to stay or an exit.
Željko Samčović 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.
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.
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.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Novi Pazar told Kaheim Dixon something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
Vojvodina next, and one man in the Novi Pazar dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Novi Pazar know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Novi Pazar, and both men came out saying it was fine.
The hardest thing about being 20 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Dimitrije Janković did not need any: 8.26, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
3 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
Successful dribbles: 22. 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.
Marked 8.14 — 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.
“I did not go to Smederevo 1924 to sit and watch. I want to come back to Novi Pazar and fight for my place.” 1 appearances in 13 matches say the rest.
The dugout9 Nov 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.” Nenad Simic, on a 2‑1 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
A brace, and Driton Camaj takes the afternoon — 8.79
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Driton Camaj provided it, and the 8.79 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
The hardest thing about being 20 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Skima Togbe did not need any: 7.82, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
He is 20 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.
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.
Marked 7.21 on 10 actions at both ends of the pitch. Midfielders like this get described as unspectacular by people who have never tried to play against one.
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.
Uroš Savković 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.
Something was said to Ümit Akdağ and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
Squad26 Oct 2026
12 new faces, and Novi Pazar 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.
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.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Javor-Matis in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
Tomislav Dadić 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 at Novi Pazar saw it before anybody said it, which is how this always goes. At 36 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 board was up, the win was priced in, and then IMT scored. There is no worse minute to concede in and the ground emptied in the silence that follows one.
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 dugout19 Oct 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Nenad Simic was not hiding it after 1‑1, and nobody in the Novi Pazar dressing room was either.
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.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Novi Pazar, and 0 appearances in 9 say he has earned the hearing.
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Skima Togbe commits to Novi Pazar for another 5 years.
Squad12 Oct 2026
A Novi Pazar teenager takes the young player award
Dimitrije Janković 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.
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 Ensar Brunčević is on it.
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 Jovan Marinković has written the date down.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Skima Togbe trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
3 goals in 4 games at Radnik Krizevci — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Novi Pazar updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
Zeleznicar Pancevo will want this one forgotten quickly: 3‑0, every duel lost, and a long ride home. Novi Pazar were ruthless in the way good sides are ruthless.
A mark of 8.08 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 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.
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.
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Tomislav Dadić has come out of that comparison in the side, and Novi Pazar have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Nenad Simic on a 3‑0 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Novi Pazar, and both men came out saying it was fine.
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 Dimitrije Janković is on it.
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.
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.
Željko Samčović 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.
7 goals in one match, Tomislav Dadić on the scoresheet, and a scoreline that will look like a misprint. Neutrals could not have asked more of Novi Pazar and Partizan.
“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 Novi Pazar know it.
12 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.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager’s verdict
The dugoutSomebody else is better right now than Veljko Mirosavić
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Novi Pazar have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Željko Samčović 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 pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Jovan Manev, and the manager let it.
Boardroom21 Sep 2026
Nobody left the Novi Pazar dressing room in a hurry
The door stayed shut a long time after the final whistle. What was said in there is between them; whether it worked is between them and Saturday.
The dugout21 Sep 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 1‑4 Nenad Simic left the room before anybody could ask which.
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Medeama waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Novi Pazar is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Two goals and a mark of 8.66 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Marked 8.26 — 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.
The board was up, the win was priced in, and then Radnicki 1923 scored. There is no worse minute to concede in and the ground emptied in the silence that follows one.
A defender's mistake gets tidied up by somebody else; a goalkeeper's ends up in the net. He knew before the ball crossed the line, and so did everybody in the ground.
“I did not go to Smederevo 1924 to sit and watch. I want to come back to Novi Pazar and fight for my place.” 0 appearances in 5 matches say the rest.
The dugout14 Sep 2026
The manager has not finished forgetting Željko Samčović's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Novi Pazar people have started saying his name in the past tense.
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 16 arrived, 5 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Ludogorets keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
The fee was agreed and the flight was looked at — and then the phone stopped ringing. Javor-Matis moved on, Dominic Sadi reports back to Novi Pazar, and everybody pretends Monday is just Monday.
Novi Pazar asked and Santos said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
At 20 he has spent a month being better than everybody his age in the league, which is a different and harder thing than one good afternoon. Novi Pazar will try very hard not to make too much of it.
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Novi Pazar are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
The manager has re-ordered his thinking and Aleksandar Miljković 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.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Novi Pazar have lost him in all but the paperwork.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Stefan Denić has just signed for Novi Pazar, and for once the answer mattered.
The phone has started ringing about Skima Togbe again, and this time the name on the line is Medeama. Novi Pazar are listening politely and promising nothing.
Novi Pazar asked and St. Gallen said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Uroš Savković 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 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Mihajlo Petković 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.
12 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 offer from Ušće for Abdulsamed Abdullahi 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.
Željko Samčović 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.
Novi Pazar asked and Lokomotiv Moscow 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 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Vieri Kotzebue 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 clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Partizan keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Olympiacos have kept their man, and Novi Pazar go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 2‑0, Nenad Simic could afford to be generous.
“It was not right for me. I am not going to explain why to anybody except the people I owe an explanation to.” A deal agreed between two clubs, and a player who declined to be part of it.
Željko Samčović 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. Panathinaikos have kept their man, and Novi Pazar go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
The name of Anes Rušević has come up in conversations Novi Pazar were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Sinisa Jovanovic 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. Aleksandar Milenkovic 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.
A mark of 8.23 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.
Luka Bijelović 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.
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 8 goals between Novi Pazar and OFK Beograd, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 20-year-old it feels ownership of. Dimitrije Janković 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.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Novi Pazar are dealing with a man who wants a different country.