Supporters organise against the Radnicki Nis board
A bad atmosphere can be waited out. A group of people meeting afterwards to decide what to do about it cannot, and everybody in the building knows which stage this is.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Alexandr Shestyuk provided it, and the 8.94 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Ranko Jokić 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.
12 combined actions and 7.29. 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.
The dugout22 Feb 2027
The manager has not finished forgetting Srđan Babić'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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Srđan Kočić was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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.
7.79, 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.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Radnicki Nis is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
He left as a boy and has come back still knowing where the away end is. Most signings have to be explained to a town; this one needed a photograph and nothing else.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Genoa have kept their man, and Radnicki Nis go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Cukaricki will want this one forgotten quickly: 5‑0, every duel lost, and a long ride home. Radnicki Nis were ruthless in the way good sides are ruthless.
The board have said in public what they had been saying in private. Results between now and the next meeting decide it, and everybody in the building knows the arithmetic.
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Dejan Stanivuković has pre-agreed a move away, which means every appearance between now and June is made by a man the club can no longer sell, and somebody upstairs will be asked why the contract was allowed to get here.
Artem Karpukas 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.
Radnicki Nis asked and Luzern said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
In brief
SquadWords at Radnicki Nis training over how hard people work
Nobody upstairs has said anything, which is the loudest thing they could do. Results buy silence in this game; the account at Radnicki Nis is running low.
1 for Artem Karpukas, marked 7.90, and a centre-half's name in the part of the report he normally only reaches by mistake. He will not be allowed to forget it in the dressing room for a month.
Boardroom1 Feb 2027
Radnicki Nis 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 chase for Nikola Simić ended with $1.2M changing hands and TSC out of reasons to say no. The supporters will judge the fee the only way that matters: on Saturdays.
The offer from Zeleznicar Pancevo for Dejan Stanivuković 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: Spartak Moscow keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Radnicki Nis this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The phone has started ringing about Gboly Ariyibi again, and this time the name on the line is Voždovac. Radnicki Nis are listening politely and promising nothing.
Supporters organise against the Radnicki Nis board
A bad atmosphere can be waited out. A group of people meeting afterwards to decide what to do about it cannot, and everybody in the building knows which stage this is.
Two goals and a mark of 8.57 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Radnicki Nis and TSC have settled on $1.2M. The rest belongs to the player and his agent, and a supporter who has watched one of these before knows not to buy the shirt yet.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Radnicki Nis have done the hard part with Spartak Moscow, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
The name of Dejan Stanivuković has come up in conversations Radnicki Nis were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
The goal that put Radnik Surdulica ahead was still being replayed on the concourse when Radnicki Nis equalised, 1 minutes later. Leads are only worth what you do with them.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Loznica have kept their man, and Radnicki Nis go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
The dugout18 Jan 2027
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 0‑2 defeat, delivered by Milan Maksimovic to a room that had heard them before.
A loan enquiry to Spartak Moscow: cover, or a look at somebody the club cannot afford to buy yet. Either way the answer will come back inside the week.
Position 14 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Radnicki Nis can pretend not to have heard.
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.
Radnicki Nis asked and TSC said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Radnicki Nis have made the call to Spartak Moscow. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
0‑3 to Partizan, and it was every bit as bad as the number suggests. There are defeats you argue about and defeats you apologise for; this was the second kind.
Ranko Jokić 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.
It has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
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.
Ranko Jokić 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.
Boardroom28 Dec 2026
Nobody left the Radnicki Nis 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.
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Squad28 Dec 2026
Bubacar Djaló 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 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.
In brief
The dugoutThe plan did not have a place for Miloš Spasić
1 for Franck Kanouté, marked 7.98, and a centre-half's name in the part of the report he normally only reaches by mistake. He will not be allowed to forget it in the dressing room for a month.
Artem Karpukas 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.
14 goals in 15 games at Soroksár — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Radnicki Nis updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 2‑1, Milan Maksimovic could afford to be generous.
5 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.
Artem Karpukas 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.
13 goals in 14 games at Soroksár — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Radnicki Nis updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
An error at the back is a moment; an error in goal is a goal. Strahinja Manojlović knows it, the crowd knew it instantly, and there was nobody behind him to make it anything else.
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.
In brief
The dugoutBabacar Mboup 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 Radnicki Nis this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Squad7 Dec 2026
Words at Radnicki Nis training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Bubacar Djaló 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.
In brief
The dugoutBabacar Mboup knocks on the manager’s door
It has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
Marked 6.73 on 9 actions at both ends of the pitch. Midfielders like this get described as unspectacular by people who have never tried to play against one.
Half the programme played, position 15, 9 on the board. Doubling it is the sum every supporter has done and the only one nobody at the club will do out loud.
“I could talk about decisions and I could talk about luck. I will not. We lost.” The manager, 1‑3, and a press conference that lasted four minutes.
Squad30 Nov 2026
Bubacar Djaló 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 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Radnicki Nis can pretend not to have heard.
“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 Radnicki Nis know it.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Milan Maksimovic after 1‑2, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Ibrahim Mustapha’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Radnicki Nis needing him to play as if none of it matters.
Nobody at Radnicki Nis 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.
Issah Abass 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.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Bubacar Djaló was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Marko Mijailović trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Spartak Subotica next, and one man in the Radnicki Nis dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
The shrug has gone, the language is coming, and he now argues in training like somebody who expects to be here next year. Half a signing's value is this and none of it appears on a fee.
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.
Ibrahim Mustapha 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.
Marked 6.63 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 dugout9 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 0‑1 Milan Maksimovic left the room before anybody could ask which.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Bubacar Djaló was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout9 Nov 2026
Somebody else is better right now than Milijan Ilić
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.
Supporters organise against the Radnicki Nis board
A bad atmosphere can be waited out. A group of people meeting afterwards to decide what to do about it cannot, and everybody in the building knows which stage this is.
Two goals and a mark of 8.63 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Radnicki Nis have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
13 combined actions and 7.08. 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.
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 2‑1, Milan Maksimovic could afford to be generous.
Artem Karpukas 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.
The music was off and the showers ran late. What was said in that dressing room stays there, but Saturday will publish the minutes.
The dugout26 Oct 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 0‑3 Milan Maksimovic left the room before anybody could ask which.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Bubacar Djaló was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Position 14 and 6 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.
At 22 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.
Issah Abass 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.
11 combined actions and 6.73. 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.
It happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph a local paper has to write. 34 years old, 3 points down on where he was, and a body that has started charging interest on a career.
The injury that keeps coming back, keeps being rushed back from, and quietly costs more careers than the dramatic ones. 15 days is the estimate; the honest figure depends on whether anybody is patient.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Radnicki Nis, and both men came out saying it was fine.
6 goals in 6 games at Soroksár — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Radnicki Nis updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
His past walked in ahead of him. Players who have been where he has been get a hearing in a dressing room before they have earned one, and he has it for as long as his form does.
Numbers do not stay secret in a dressing room and never have. He is not asking for more than he is worth; he is asking why somebody beside him is worth more, and at Radnicki Nis that is a harder question to answer.
It has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
It is a specific kind of quiet, a ground watching a winning position dissolve. Javor-Matis kept coming because nothing stopped them, and Radnicki Nis will be asked about the last half hour all week.
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Franck Kanouté scored, was marked 7.88, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
6 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.
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Ranko Jokić is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Bubacar Djaló was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout5 Oct 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Milan Maksimovic was not hiding it after 2‑2, and nobody in the Radnicki Nis dressing room was either.
Issah Abass 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.
Nobody makes a documentary about a hamstring and everybody in the game fears one. Radnicki Nis will be careful with the return date, because the second one is always worse than the first.
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Words at Radnicki Nis training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Bubacar Djaló 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.” Milan Maksimovic after the 0‑0 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
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.
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.
Ninety minutes, no goals, and the argument started before the car park emptied: a point gained, or two thrown away against Radnik Surdulica? Both sides of it will still be going on Thursday.
Radnicki Nis asked and Luzern said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Defensive actions: 15, and a clean sheet at the end of it. A centre-half's best afternoons look like nothing happening, which is precisely the point.
The dugout21 Sep 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Milan Maksimovic was not hiding it after 0‑0, and nobody in the Radnicki Nis 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.
Ninety minutes, no goals, and the argument started before the car park emptied: a point gained, or two thrown away against IMT? Both sides of it will still be going on Thursday.
6 without a win is the sort of run that changes how a town talks about its club, and Zeleznicar Pancevo were the afternoon it stopped. Nothing is fixed by one result and everything feels different by one.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Krasnodar have kept their man, and Radnicki Nis go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
Miloš Spasić was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.02. 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Radnicki Nis this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 17 arrived, 3 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Zenit have kept their man, and Radnicki Nis go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Ranko Jokić 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.
6 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.
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Đorđe Petrović has come out of that comparison in the side, and Radnicki Nis have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Words at Radnicki Nis training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Đorđe Petrović 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.
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 Luka Izderić is on it.
Zeleznicar Pancevo next, and one man in the Radnicki Nis dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Radnicki Nis, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 10 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
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.
Radnicki Nis offered $440.0K; OFK Vršac said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
Radnicki Nis asked and Zenit 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 Radnicki Nis can pretend not to have heard.
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 7.77 for the rest of it.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Rostov is saying, and nobody at Radnicki Nis is enjoying the guessing.
The fee is $110.0K, the contract is signed, and the argument about whether he is worth it can begin. Spartak Subotica drove a hard bargain; time will say who won it.
8 goals in one match, Alexandr Shestyuk on the scoresheet, and a scoreline that will look like a misprint. Neutrals could not have asked more of Radnicki Nis and Crvena Zvezda.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Radnicki Nis have lost him in all but the paperwork.
“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.
$190.0K was the most the club would pay and IMT 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.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Milan Maksimovic after 1‑2, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
In brief
SquadBubacar Djaló falls out with a teammate over standards
1 for Franck Kanouté, marked 7.82, and a centre-half's name in the part of the report he normally only reaches by mistake. He will not be allowed to forget it in the dressing room for a month.
The offer from Soroksár for Mateja Radonjić 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 number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $204.8K — a club that wants Vasilije Novičić enough to be asked twice.
Radnicki Nis had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at AZ, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Alexandr Shestyuk and Radnicki Nis agree another 3 years.
Radnicki Nis have gone to IMT with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
Issah Abass 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.
The phone has started ringing about Lamonth Rochester again, and this time the name on the line is Dinamo Vranje. Radnicki Nis are listening politely and promising nothing.
Miloš Spasić 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.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Veljko Mladenović has, at Radnicki Nis, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
“We are a long way apart, and pretending otherwise helps nobody.” Neither side is close, and the calendar is not on the club's side.
The dugout3 Aug 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 Milan Maksimovic to a room that had heard them before.
AZ 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.
Squad3 Aug 2026
5 new faces, and Radnicki Nis 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.