75 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Zemun lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Stefan Marjanović 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 club pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time it has been tried.
Three points for Zemun, 1‑0 the final word against Dinamo Vranje in a contest settled by the finer margins.
Player ratings30 Nov 2026
Dušan Živković was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.18. 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.
23 points at the turn. The first half of a season is a promise; the second is a bill, and the town is about to find out which of the two this one was.
The dugout30 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.” Ivan Babic, on a 1‑0 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
82 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Zemun lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Zemun this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Lazar Milošev. 2‑1 against Smederevo 1924, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Dušan Puletić, and the manager let it.
Player ratings23 Nov 2026
Lazar Milošev was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.18. 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Luka 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.
Successful dribbles: 15. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
The dugout23 Nov 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.” Ivan Babic kept it short after the 2‑1 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
The words a physio says slowly. 89 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Luka Petrović 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 Dušan Puletić trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
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 Ben is on it.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Krsta Đorđević’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Zemun needing him to play as if none of it matters.
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
97 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Zemun lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 14 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
9 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.
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.
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.
In brief
The dugoutThe view from the dugout
The dugoutDušan Puletić asks for a word with the manager
The words a physio says slowly. 104 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 22 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 8 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Stefan Marjanović 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 club pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time it has been tried.
19 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.
The words a physio says slowly. 111 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Zemun will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Zemun this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Luka 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.
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 1‑4 Ivan Babic left the room before anybody could ask which.
118 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Zemun lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 36 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Nedeljko Stojišić 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 saw it before anybody said it. At 36 the numbers say 3 points down on what he was, and the question for Zemun is how to handle a man they owe a great deal.
Marked 7.28. Ask anyone leaving the ground what settled it and you will get one name, which is the only award that has ever really counted.
The dugout19 Oct 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Ivan Babic was not hiding it after 0‑0, and nobody in the Zemun dressing room was either.
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.
125 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Zemun lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 19 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Stefan Marjanović 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Luka 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.
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 squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Darko Terzić’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Zemun needing him to play as if none of it matters.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Dejan Milićević trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Zemun. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
132 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Zemun lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.82 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Ivan Rogač 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.
Everybody at Zemun saw it before anybody said it, which is how this always goes. At 37 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.
Every club pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time it has been tried.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Luka 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.
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.
139 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Zemun lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Zemun this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
Minute 89, against Kabel, and a goal that felt like a win to everybody who had stayed. It was a draw. Nobody leaving the ground will describe it as one.
21 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 words a physio says slowly. 146 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 3 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
Successful dribbles: 19. 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Luka Petrović was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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 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.
153 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Zemun lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
7.30, and no serious argument from anybody who was there. Zemun had eleven men on the pitch and one of them decided how it went.
The dugout14 Sep 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Ivan Babic was not hiding it after 0‑0, and nobody in the Zemun 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.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Jedinstvo Ub in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
The words a physio says slowly. 160 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
Deadline passes with 35 signed and 26 gone
That is the business done at Zemun until the window opens again. Whether it was enough will be answered on Saturdays rather than in a column, and the first Saturday is close.
Zemun asked and Radnik Surdulica said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Zemun, another week without a signature from Ivan Rogač.
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Nikola Leković has come out of that comparison in the side, and Zemun have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Zemun, and both men came out saying it was fine.
“I will know when it is time. I am not there yet.” Ivan Rogač is 34, with 315 appearances behind him, and Zemun will have to plan for whichever answer comes.
Zemun had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Farul Constanța, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
Nedeljko Stojišić 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. Mladost Lucani have kept their man, and Zemun go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
“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.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Luka Petrović 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.
Squad31 Aug 2026
22 new faces, and Zemun 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.
The dugout31 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 0‑2 defeat, delivered by Ivan Babic to a room that had heard them before.
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.
In brief
Player ratingsĐorđe Brborić beats them one at a time
Zeleznicar Pancevo go through and Zemun go home, 1‑2 the scoreline that did it. The dressing room will call the league the priority now, because that is what dressing rooms say.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: FCSB keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Zemun asked and Piast 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 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Luka 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 footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Filip Vasiljević has, at Zemun, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
Ivan Rogač 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 23 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 a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Milan Jokić is living that version at Zemun, and it tends to show in the first month.
The deal with OFK Beograd is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Novi Pazar keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Some transfers need a press campaign. This one needed a shirt with the old number on it. Dejan Milićević is a Zemun player again, and the town has its story of the summer.
Nikola Leković 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 version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Darko Terzić is living that version at Zemun, and it tends to show in the first month.
Some transfers need a press campaign. This one needed a shirt with the old number on it. Ivan Rogač is a Zemun player again, and the town has its story of the summer.
Some transfers need a press campaign. This one needed a shirt with the old number on it. Miodrag Gemović is a Zemun player again, and the town has its story of the summer.
Signings arrive with a picture of the club in their head, and this one’s picture was bigger than the building. He will play well and he will be gone, in that order, and everybody knows it.
Mihajlo Madžarević 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.
He is doing things every Saturday that nobody around him can answer. It is flattering for a season and a problem after that, and Zemun know which stage they are at.