26 February. In an individual video session Stefan Kovac tells Talalaev: "I want to do this, but I can't make it work."
15 June. Baltika's sporting director publicly suggests he look for a more suitable team.
5 August. Kovac comes on against Zenit and hits the post in the closing minutes.
Three dates, and his whole year in Kaliningrad fits between them. And Kovac is still here.
Some Baltika players we argue about every week. Others we demand be dropped from the side. Kovac we somehow quietly stopped arguing about altogether – we saw too little of him.
And yet in the summer of 2025 he was the first signing of the window and the club's biggest purchase of that season: €1.2m, contract to 5 June 2030 (Novy Kaliningrad, Championat).
And they were buying a completely different player
His season at Partizan was the best of Kovac's career: 27 starts in 33 matches, 2,375 minutes, 5 goals and 4 assists, an average rating of 7.02 and three appearances in the team of the week (Sofascore). In other words, Baltika weren't buying a man for the bench.
In June sporting director Armen Margaryan admitted the transfer was a tactical mistake and said the player should look for a more suitable team (Sport24). But the same interview has a second part that usually goes unquoted:
"You have to understand: the head coach wanted Stefan as much as anyone. He saw him as a very important player."
This wasn't a transfer done over the coach's head. Talalaev wanted Kovac himself – and then barely used him in the league.
What the €1.2m was for
Five goals and four assists for a central midfielder is good, but nobody pays the biggest fee of the summer window for that. And there's no need to guess here: Talalaev explained before the season what he liked.
"Kovac is a leader and the vice-captain of Partizan, what more is there to say?"
"Kovac's strength is his versatility: he can defend and he can attack. I really like universal players like that. In the middle of the pitch he can play any position in any system" (Championat).
That's the whole scouting report in two sentences: status plus versatility. For a coach who reshapes his system for every opponent, a player for any position in the middle is a saved transfer slot. One Kovac instead of three narrow profiles.
And the status rested on one specific evening. 22 February 2025, the 175th Eternal Derby, the Marakana, matchday 24. Partizan are losing 1:2, Roganović crosses from the right, Kovac is left alone at the near post and heads it into the top corner from seven yards – 2:2; the match would finish 3:3. A product of the Crvena Zvezda academy who never played a single match for their first team scored a header against them at their own stadium. After that the Serbian press wrote of him as "one of the best players" and "one of the most important players of the Steamroller" (the nickname of Partizan and its players).
Then the economics begin, and they don't favour Baltika. Partizan bought Kovac from Čukarički in August 2024 for €350k and sold him ten months later for €1.2m plus bonuses for individual and team results in Kaliningrad; Čukarički are owed 20% of the difference. The price tripled in one season.
Margaryan describes the logic of the purchase more honestly than is customary: "when we bring in players from Partizan and Ferencváros, we count on them starting" (Sports.ru). So they weren't buying a set of metrics for a specific role, they were buying a category – a Partizan first-teamer.
The most unpleasant part of this story is that both risks were named out loud before matchday one. In the same pre-season interview Talalaev added:
"Maybe he's still slightly lacking in finesse in attack. If he adds that too, he'll probably be a player who isn't for Russia any more."
"The other question is how quickly Stefan adapts – football in Serbia and the Europa League is a bit different, after all."
Both came true.
And Kovac was one of two transfers nobody at the club argued about at all. Talalaev: "Margaryan and I very rarely both say 'yes'. On Eldar Civic and Stefan Kovac we had no questions" (Sports.ru). The two least contested decisions of the window became the two most problematic – which says more about Baltika's recruitment than any public spat between director and coach. Though nobody paid for Civic, and he seems to have found his game.
And the failure was eventually explained by precisely the quality they'd paid for:
"At Partizan Stefan was one of the central midfielders in a 4-3-3. In our 3-4-3 there are only two central midfielders, and the volume of intensity is incomparable. Moving to a different game model with different demands didn't let Kovac open up. He simply can't do what other players in his position do" (Sport24).
They bought the ability to play any position in the middle. What they needed was one specific position – with double the workload, because three central midfielders had turned into two. Being able to play everywhere turned out not to be the same as being able to run for two.
What that "intensity" really means we'll get to in the numbers a bit further down. Spoiler: it's not about running.
Seven matches. Zero starts
109 minutes in a season isn't even two full matches. You can't judge Kovac as a footballer with any confidence on a sample like that. But it shows his place in Talalaev's construction precisely: there was almost no place at all.
But there was another Kovac – the Cup one
The interesting part began in the Russian Cup. On 18 September Kovac started against CSKA and played 83 minutes. Kirill Stepanov equalised in the 90th, and then Baltika won a mad penalty shoot-out 10:9, with goalkeeper Ivan Kukushkin scoring the decisive kick. And it wasn't a one-off. In the Cup that season Kovac played six matches and 448 minutes in total: four group games on the RPL Path for 299 minutes and two in the Regions Path play-offs for 149, including the full 90 against Torpedo in November. In the Cup he got four times as many minutes as in the whole of the RPL. Same coach, same player – a different level of opponent and a different level of trust.
After the CSKA game he was asked about his position in the team.
"As for my small amount of playing time – that's the coach's decision. There's no problem with me. I work every day. I use every opportunity. Everything's fine."
No public grumbling, no hints – very professional behaviour for a man who isn't playing.
"I want to. But I can't make it work"
And in February Talalaev told a story after which it's hard to see Kovac as simply a failed transfer. The coach recalled an individual video session:
"Recently we were correcting Kovac's actions. When a player gives everything to improve something in himself and be more useful to the team, I treat that with reverence. We spoke one on one, plus the analyst coach was in the room. At one point his eyes even welled up: 'I want to do this, but I can't make it work'" (Championat).
This isn't a conflict and it isn't "the coach doesn't like me". It isn't even necessarily a lack of quality. A footballer simply arrived at a team where his position demands something a bit different from what he does best.
Transfers like this are unpleasant precisely because there's no point looking for someone to blame. Kovac didn't slack off. Talalaev wanted him himself. The club later honestly admitted the mistake. Everyone acted logically – and it didn't work.
Intensity isn't just running
Here I'd argue with how Margaryan's wording is usually read: "Kovac couldn't handle the intensity".
At the very least, the running data doesn't offer a simple explanation. Sofascore has Kovac in the RPL at 11.8 km per 90 minutes, 26.4 sprints and a top speed of 31.9 km/h. On a 109-minute sample that's no reason to declare him physically ready for everything in Talalaev's football, but there's no portrait here of a player who simply can't run at the required tempo either.
At Partizan Kovac had 42.6 touches per 72 minutes; at Baltika, 13 per 16. You can't compare those directly: the minutes are too different. A rough conversion to 90 minutes actually gives around 53 touches in Serbia and 73 in the RPL. On 109 minutes, drawing conclusions about involvement from that is pointless.
Far more interesting is what happened to the ball next. At Partizan he lost possession roughly once every 4.7 touches; at Baltika, once every 3.3. Passing accuracy dropped from 79% to 70%.
On a 109-minute sample that's only a direction, not a diagnosis. But the direction matches the club's explanation: perhaps Kovac's problem wasn't whether he could handle the required running volume, but whether he could get to the next action in time. The same lungs – but far less time for the next move.
In January he himself singled out exactly this among the features of Russian football:
"Physical preparation comes first in Russia. After that comes the quality of the players, and then intelligence – the ability to see something in advance. Those two things I'd single out especially" (Arena Sport).
That proves nothing, but it gives our hypothesis his own words.
And here the difference between three central midfielders and two that Margaryan talked about stops being arithmetic. In a 4-3-3 there are two more central players beside you: different distances, more options when you receive the ball. In a 3-4-3, be late with a pass and the opponent is already running into transition. Talalaev's football demands not just a lot of movement, but doing everything faster.
I want to. But I can't make it work. Can't make it work yet – that last word is the most interesting one here.
A man between two countries
And the role of a man in between isn't new for Kovac at all. Before Baltika he'd already found himself between two countries and between the two big clubs of Belgrade.
March 2018. Two Kovac brothers leave the same Belgrade flat, drive to the airport together and part ways there. Eighteen-year-old Stefan flies to Denmark to play for the Bosnia and Herzegovina youth team. Seventeen-year-old Vukan flies to the Czech Republic to defend Serbia's colours in the elite round. Both from the Crvena Zvezda system, both Zvezda fans, and of their parents one supports Bosnia, the other Serbia (Sportske.ba).
Kovac was born in Belgrade, but the family is from Foča, in Republika Srpska. Father from Bosnia, mother from Serbia.
In September 2019 Serbia tried to get him back. The under-21s were gathering for Euro qualifiers – against Russia, ironically – and Kovac was on the list, but didn't play. Coach Nenad Milovanović explained:
"Although Čukarički's Stefan Kovac was called up, it appears he won't be able to play for Serbia. The problem arose because nobody at the Football Association of Serbia knew that his father, while Stefan was still a minor, had signed a document committing him to play for the national teams of Bosnia and Herzegovina" (Sportske.ba).
The Bosnian press ran the headline "Serbia tried to steal a BiH player, the father's signature stopped everything". But there's a second version: the player's father, Milko Kovac, denied those reports and denied that a legally binding document could even exist (Wikipedia). Who was right was never publicly established.
Kovac never did play for Bosnia's senior side. Nor for Serbia's. A man pulled in different directions ended up playing for no senior national team at all.
A man between two Belgrade clubs
With clubs it went much the same way.
Kovac came through every junior section at Crvena Zvezda, wore the captain's armband in his age group for several years, signed a professional contract in 2018 – and never played a single first-team match. He found his club at Čukarički: 183 matches and 20 goals in five and a half years, plus 19 European games and 4 goals in them.
And then he moved to Partizan – the eternal rival of the club he supported himself. And six months later scored a header against Zvezda at the Marakana.
And Belgrade football reminded him that it forgets nothing. Some fans were unhappy with the transfer – and not because of the player's level. They dug up an old clip from the TV show "Ja imam talenat" in which Kovac and his brother make it perfectly clear they support Crvena Zvezda (Telegraf.rs).
Best comment under that article: "I don't get why he's moving from Čuka to Partizan, it's like getting off a horse and onto a donkey."
Partizan paid €350k for him (Sportske.ba) and gave him the number fourteen – the same one he now wears at Baltika. On signing his contract Kovac called himself a player with great fighting spirit who does everything possible on the pitch for the team (Partizan).
A year and a half later it turned out that sometimes doing everything possible isn't enough.
In front of Talalaev he was sitting with a different line: "I want to do this, but I can't make it work."
January and June
14 January 2026, on his 27th birthday, Kovac gave a long interview to Serbia's Arena Sport. There's a passage in it that's almost awkward to read now.
"It's hard to change a winning line-up. I try to always be ready and jump in when needed. In the league I came on as a substitute in every match, and I expect the number of minutes to grow."
That's mid-January. And on 15 June the club publicly says he needs to look for a more suitable team. Five months between "I expect it to grow" and "find yourself another club".
In January Kovac didn't look at all like a man planning to leave. He was learning Russian every day because the language is similar to Serbian, said Kaliningrad was a calm city and that the traffic here felt like the slowest in Europe, and was waiting for his playing time to grow. He was also phoning Partizan's young players and telling them not to relax in the title race: "I don't want to be pushy, but I want to pass on to them what I understood late and they can understand now, while they're young."
A footballer without a single RPL start, mentoring the leaders of the Serbian league by phone. A very precise detail of his character.
They opened the door. He didn't leave
On 15 June the door was effectively opened for Kovac. Two weeks later he was on the list for the training camp in Isparta, Turkey, and went through all three stages of pre-season – Svetlogorsk, Isparta, Sochi.
On 11 July he scored a brace in a friendly against Tikveš – 6:0, goals in the 57th and 59th minutes. Let's not sell a friendly as proof of RPL quality: the match was shortened, and Baltika beat the Macedonian club several times over the same camp. What matters more is that Kovac kept working after he'd been publicly advised to find a new club.
Then came registration under number fourteen, no place in the squad for CSKA and the bench against Dynamo.
And then came the evening of 5 August at the Gazprom Arena, and it deserves closer examination than a substitute appearance in a lost Cup match usually gets. Zenit scored in the 3rd minute from a corner and had 71% possession by half-time, while Baltika didn't manage a single shot on target. In the 62nd minute Talalaev sent Kovac on for Civic.
And Baltika's two sharpest moments of the whole evening came after he came on – and he was in both. First Moskvichev saved a point-blank shot from Maksim Petrov, and Kovac's follow-up was blocked by Diveev. Then in the fourth minute of added time he drifted towards the centre and curled the ball towards the top corner – the hosts were saved by the post. Hence Talalaev's line at the press conference: "Chances like the ones at the end have to be taken" (Sport.ru). So the team's closest moment to a goal all match was created by a player who two months earlier had been advised to find a new club.
Half an hour and one post prove nothing – here I'm following the same rules as with the 109 minutes in the RPL. And there's a detail that punctures the pathos: it's the Cup again. Just like a year ago, Kovac looks alive precisely in the competition that Kaliningrad considers the second most important. But for the first time in a year there's at least something said not in words but on the pitch: he came on at 0:1 against the strongest opponent in the country and was in his team's two most dangerous attacks.
His Transfermarkt valuation has almost halved in a year – from €1.8m to roughly €900k. If appearances like that continue, that number will have a reason to turn around for the first time.
This isn't necessarily a second chance yet. Perhaps the club simply didn't find an acceptable way to part ways. But while Kovac trains with the team, makes the squad and hits the post at the Gazprom Arena, it's too early to put a full stop on this story.
So who is Stefan Kovac?
A failed transfer? Going by the first season – yes. A bad footballer? The first season didn't prove that. A footballer who doesn't fit Talalaev's Baltika? For now that's the most convincing version.
But if you look at his whole life, you can see something more precise.
Kovac has spent his entire career somewhere in between. Between Serbia and Bosnia. Between Crvena Zvezda and Partizan. Between a good footballer and a bad-fit transfer. Now – between "find a new club" and taking the pitch for Baltika.
A man who was always only half wanted.
That's exactly why he remains the most mysterious player in the current squad. Usually after a year it's clear what a club got from a transfer. With Kovac only one thing is clear: they didn't get what they were after.
He'll leave – and this story will remain a rare case of a club publicly admitting its own transfer mistake.
He'll start an RPL match – and make everyone reopen last year's comments. For the traditional football about-face, naturally.
And for the first time in a year the second option has stopped looking like fantasy. All winter and spring the arguments for Kovac were words: he works hard, he doesn't complain, his eyes welled up. On 5 August an argument from the pitch appeared for the first time: thirty minutes at the Gazprom Arena, a point-blank follow-up and a ball off the post in the last minute of added time.
Careers sometimes turn on thirty minutes like that. And sometimes they don't, and a post like that remains the highlight of the year. Kovac, as usual, is currently standing exactly between those two endings. But for the first time in a year he's standing there not with words, but with the ball.
And one last thing I can't back up with anything.
I've been watching photos and videos from training camps for a year – and I can't catch him in a bad mood. He smiles, says hello, works in every drill as if he's starting on Sunday. Not a single episode you could hold against him. And still I can't shake the feeling – just a feeling, there's nothing to check it against – that his eyes have been sad this whole year.
A man who does everything right and gets nothing for it.
After that appearance in St Petersburg, would you give him a start in the next round – or is it time to close this story?
