Duje Korač, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 8.21
A mark of 8.21 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Rudes this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
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.
“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; Rudes are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Anthony Pavlešić is 20, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Dominik Mulac 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.
21 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.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Vedran Celjak 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Rudes this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
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.
15 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
A mark of 8.78 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.
Dominik Mulac 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Kristijan Lovrić 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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 20-year-old it feels ownership of. Matteo Pérez Vinlöf 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.
Conceding is one thing; the response is what tells you about a dressing room. Krešimir Kovačević had Rudes level again within 4 minutes, and Lucko never got to play with a lead at all.
In brief
SquadThe manager has not finished forgetting Duje Korač's mistake
Diego Farías 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.
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.
17 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.
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.
Shots: 6. Goals: none. The chances were there and they were good ones, and they went into the stand, the goalkeeper's arms and the side netting in roughly that order.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Rudes can pretend not to have heard.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Facundo Moreira is living that version at Rudes, and it tends to show in the first month.
Dominik Mulac 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Kristijan Lovrić 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.
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Rudes this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Slaven Belupo paid $360.0K and Rudes took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
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 was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Rudes has been clear about where Frane Barbić stands, which is more than many ever get.
In brief
Player ratingsThe chances came and went for Adiele Eriugo
Dugopolje go through and Rudes go home, 0‑2 the scoreline that did it. The dressing room will call the league the priority now, because that is what dressing rooms say.
The terraces24 Aug 2026
The boos come down from three sides
“We pay for this every fortnight. The least we want is somebody who looks like he cares.” 8 of the 29 senior players walked off into it; the rest were not playing.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Rudes can pretend not to have heard.
Dominik Mulac 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.
Slaven Belupo paid $200.0K and Rudes took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
In brief
SquadWords at Rudes training over how hard people work
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Rudes this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 20-year-old it feels ownership of. Anthony Pavlešić 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 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 crowd waited for a goal that never came. Cibalia defended in numbers and left with what they came for, and the two sides could be playing still without troubling a scorer.
4 shots, and a count that reads like a good afternoon until you check the other column. Strikers survive weeks like this on the understanding that the chances keep arriving; the day they stop is the day it becomes a problem.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Rudes this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
Dominik Mulac 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Vedran Celjak 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.